Elon Musk revives lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI, filing shows
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Tesla and X chairman Elon Musk had filed a suit in February, only to withdraw it in June.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
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CALIFORNIA – Elon Musk, the chairman of Tesla and social media platform X, on Aug 5 revived a lawsuit against ChatGPT maker OpenAI and its chief executive officer Sam Altman, saying that the firm put profits and commercial interests ahead of the public good.
The new lawsuit is the latest attempt by Mr Musk to oppose the company he co-founded in 2015. He alleges that once OpenAI’s technology started to transform generative artificial intelligence, Mr Altman “flipped the narrative and proceeded to cash in”.
OpenAI and Mr Musk did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comments.
The suit seeks a judicial determination that OpenAI’s licence to Microsoft to use its AI models is null and void.
Mr Musk also contends that the OpenAI’s language models are outside the scope of the company’s partnership with Microsoft.
OpenAI has a licensing partnership with Microsoft, under which the big tech giant invests billions of dollars into the start-up in exchange for using its large language models for its computing services.
In June, the billionaire entrepreneur withdrew the lawsuit against OpenAI and Mr Altman, which accused them of abandoning the startup’s original mission to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity rather than for profit.
Attorneys for Mr Musk had asked the California state court to dismiss the lawsuit without providing a reason for the move.
In the case, filed in February, Mr Musk had said that OpenAI’s three founders had originally agreed to work on AI in a way that would “benefit humanity”. REUTERS
