Reading guide:Elon · Musk decided to take Sam · Ultraman and OpenAI to court again,In order for the court to decide the original route of OpenAI,To be really open and non-profit。
On August 5, Musk again filed a new complaint in federal court in California, United States.
Part of the new complaint is a rewrite of his complaint from February. While the two pleadings are largely identical in part, the new pleadings are twice as long, charging Altman and OpenAI with 15 counts of wrongdoing, instead of the original five.
Musk has also hired a new team of lawyers for this purpose. The SpaceX and Tesla boss claimed that he had been scammed into supporting the launch and development of ChatGPT. OpenAI went from an open non-profit organization to a closed, for-profit enterprise, so he wanted to compensate himself for the losses he had been scammed out of and get a piece of the pie from legal support and judgments.
"Greedy" OpenAI
In the new indictment, Musk's team added a preamble.
"Elon · Musk's lawsuit against Ultraman Sam · and OpenAI is a prime example of egoism and greed," the indictment said. Altman conspired with the other defendants to deliberately curry favor with and deceive Musk, exploiting Musk's humanitarian concerns about the existential danger posed by artificial intelligence. ”
The indictment alleges that back in 2015, when Altman and his friends founded OpenAI with Musk's backing, they made promises they knew they wouldn't keep. For Musk, it's important that the lab's research results are open (even if not open-source) and secure; OpenAI's corporate charter seems to make it clear that its mission is to make its technology public in the public interest.
OpenAI, Inc. was officially announced on December 11, 2015, and the company "capitalized" Musk's fame by having him co-chair its board of directors alongside Altman and Brockman as chief technology officer (CTO).
Clearly, Musk's alliance has brought a lot of benefits to OpenAI, with the filing saying that his involvement has brought "connections, credibility and influence" to the organization. The SpaceX CEO also allegedly provided OpenAI with $44.6 million between 2016 and 2020, which was originally set to go toward plans that Musk believed it would do.
According to the indictment, things started to go bad when Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg · Brockman (also a defendant) decided in 2017-2018 to make OpenAI a for-profit company. Musk strongly opposed the idea, but OpenAI launched its for-profit business the following year, which the indictment says is even a "conspiracy to control and exploit OpenAI's technology."
When OpenAI refused to make its AI model public starting with the GPT-4 version, Altman really cheated Musk. OpenAI and Microsoft (the latter pouring billions of dollars into OpenAI to be able to dedicate the lab's technology to Azure, Office, and Windows) will make a fortune from Elon's early investments, while Musk gets nothing.
The complaint alleges that Musk was "betrayed by Ultraman and his associates," adding: "This treachery and deception is like a Shakespeare play." ”
The document makes several references to OpenAI's business dealings with Microsoft, Reddit, Helion Energy, and other companies affiliated with Altman; It also doesn't ignore the copyright lawsuits that OpenAI is dealing with, as well as investigations by the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the United States Senate. Musk's legal team is preparing to do everything in its power to beat the ChatGPT team to the ground.
After OpenAI, Musk set up his own AI generation lab, xAI, and his chatbot assistant Grok has been embedded in his social network Twitter/X. We have no doubt that Elon would love to inject OpenAI's technology into xAI and Tesla – especially after pouring millions of dollars into OpenAI. But he can't and can't do it, because OpenAI won't share its own toys for free.
It is possible to succeed where the old lawsuit failed
The latest lawsuit is essentially the same as the previous one, but is richer in content.
The first attempt accuses OpenAI of breach of contract and cites OpenAI's articles of association as evidence that everything promised (all the rhetoric about openness) has not been fulfilled. And this time the attempt goes one step further, presumably in the hope that the more it attacks OpenAI, the more it will be able to hold on.
The sixth allegation alleges that this is a "breach of express contract", i.e. a contract that is expressly provided for by some kind of written agreement. Musk's team said that correspondence between X's current boss and Altman in 2015 constituted a contract in which Musk agreed to provide funding and OpenAI would produce open technology on a non-profit basis. Musk argues that OpenAI's failure to deliver on this promise constitutes a breach of contract.
The seventh offence relates to "breach of a de facto implied contract", i.e. a contract formed by conduct rather than explicit words. The reasoning here is similar to the above, and again the articles of association are mentioned.
The eighth charge is "breach of an implied contract of good faith and fair dealing"; The ninth charge is "breach of quasi-contract/unjust enrichment". Apparently, Musk's legal team tried to cover all legal bases and prove that OpenAI was in breach at some point, and the last indictment did not adequately do so.
Other allegations include fraud, racketeering, false advertising, unfair competition, breach of fiduciary duty, and tortious interference. The unfair competition charges and one of the false advertising charges are based on local law in California, where Musk is currently trying to get X and SpaceX to move out. This week, X said it would pull out of its San Francisco office in favor of nearby San Jose and Palo Alto office space.
According to the indictment, Musk wants more than just cash, as the losses caused by OpenAI "cannot be reasonably or adequately compensated in monetary terms." The most critical thing is that OpenAI has received everything thanks to Musk's donation, as well as the termination of the licensing agreement, which gives Microsoft the exclusive use of the GPT-4-based model.
This fits well with both xAI and Tesla.
Musk is also asking for a lot of money this time, including all of OpenAI's profits from his original $44.6 million donation, plus triple damages, punitive damages, and legal fees.
The current Musk
Five United States secretaries of state sent a letter to Musk on Monday, urging him to ensure that Grok, a generative chatbot from his xAI labs that is available via Twitter/X, stops posting misinformation about the 2024 presidential election.
At the moment, xAI is "telling" users that "Kamala ·Harris, who are competing with Donald · Trump, will not be able to appear on the ballot in nine states."
OpenAI is once again "turbulent"
In addition, OpenAI announced that it will not release GPT-5 at its DevDay this year. This year's DevDay is expected to be less sensational than last year.
2024 and beyond will be a developer roadshow.
In addition, OpenAI co-founder John Schulman is leaving to join Anthropic, a machine learning lab founded by former OpenAI employees and others.
据The Infomation 报道,OpenAI 联合创始人 Greg Brockman 已休假,产品负责人 Peter Deng 也已离职。
Someone commented on the X platform that OpenAI is falling into the whirlpool of brain drain and has become the de facto "Whampoa Military Academy" of AI.
At the time of the dual impact of Musk's second indictment and internal resignation, I hope OpenAI will not become the second Fairchild.