Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, Q* Model the artificial intelligence research lab he co-founded in 2015, and its CEO Sam Altman, over an alleged breach of contract and fiduciary duty. The lawsuit, which was filed in San Francisco Superior Court on February 28, 2024, claims that OpenAI and Altman have violated the lab’s founding mission to create and ensure the safe and beneficial use of artificial general intelligence (AGI), or an AI system that can perform any task that a human can.
According to the lawsuit, the main source of contention is the development and deployment of Q*, a powerful and secretive AI model that OpenAI claims to be the first AGI in the world. Q* is the successor of GPT-4, a widely popular natural language processing model that can generate coherent and diverse text based on a given prompt or context. Q*, however, goes beyond natural language and can also perform tasks such as image recognition, speech synthesis, logic reasoning, and code generation, using a single unified framework.
The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI and Altman have breached the founding agreement of the lab, which states that OpenAI is a non-profit organization that aims to ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity, and that its research and technology are open and transparent to the public. The lawsuit claims that OpenAI and Altman have turned the lab into a for-profit entity that is controlled by Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion in OpenAI in 2020 and has exclusive commercial rights to its intellectual property, including Q*. The lawsuit also claims that OpenAI and Altman have kept Q* secret from the public and the scientific community, and have used it for their own profit and power, without regard for the ethical and social implications of AGI.
The lawsuit further alleges that OpenAI and Altman have engaged in unfair business practices, such as poaching talent from Musk’s other ventures, such as Tesla and xAI, and sabotaging their AI projects. The lawsuit also accuses OpenAI and Altman of conspiring to oust Musk from the lab’s board in 2018, citing potential conflicts of interest with his other businesses. The lawsuit states that Musk resigned from the board in protest, but remained a major donor and supporter of the lab, until he discovered the true nature and extent of Q* and its misuse.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages above $105,000, as well as an injunction to stop OpenAI and Altman from using Q* for commercial purposes, and to compel them to disclose Q* to the public and the scientific community. The lawsuit also seeks to restore OpenAI’s original mission and vision, and to reinstate Musk as a board member and a co-founder of the lab.
The lawsuit that Elon Musk has filed against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, over the development and deployment of Q*, a powerful and secretive AI model that OpenAI claims to be the first artificial general intelligence in the world.
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