It looks like Elon Musk is not alone in a legal battle thrown to thwart OpenAI from switching to a for-profit company.
Geoffrey Hinton who earned recognition as being the top mind in the AI industry, not to mention a prominent data expert, is actually showing support for Musk and his legal case that wants to bar OpenAI from making the switch.
Hinton shared more on this front including how OpenAI was founded with a sole purpose and that was to be non-profit. To make a sudden switch is questionable and unacceptable in his eyes. Remember, the company was first known as a safe non-profit entity so it’s alarming why it thinks making the switch would be acceptable now.
Hinton who is also a Noble Peace Prize winner of 2024 for his groundbreaking work in the world of physics shared several safety-based promises inside the charter. This includes marketing AI to better human abilities instead of seeking a replacement. It also has so many tax and different benefits, thanks to its non-profit status.
The fact that it could tear that up into shreds and move on as if nothing happened in the past is not only irresponsible but also setting the wrong standards for today’s industry, he continued. Remember, OpenAI was first founded in 2015 as a research lab working on a non-profit basis by leading members Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and several others.
In 2019, it started to behave similar to the workings of a startup firm. Then it came up with capped-profit models featuring non-profits staying in control of the entire firm. For now, it’s on a mission to get a more classic for-profit stance that enables the firm to raise the capital it needs using conventional terms that’s similar to others working in this space. This was mentioned by the company itself in a blog published last week.
But Musk is keen to block this switch and has been rivaling many of its actions since he left the board in 2018. Encode already rolled out a legal document that provided more information of a court case from a group that may not be involved directly but full supports the lawsuit blocking OpenAI.
Such restructuring would undermine the company’s committment to make public safety a priority, Encode shared in its recent statement. It further added that the company is currently operating in a non-profit where essential guardrails are in place and if the switch happens, these get forfeited.
This is not the first time that we’re seeing Hinton go against OpenAI with public criticism. A press conference from October shed light on how opposed Hinton was with Sam Altman. He felt the CEO was more worried about making money and less concerned about public safety. If that was not enough, he called this entire scenario a very unfortunate situation.
In the past year, Hinton shared more on this front including how he needed to sound the alarms before AI could cause a major catastrophe for humanity. He also shared with the NYT how much he regretted his position in developing AI tech.
On the other hand, Musk’s concerns are a little more on the personal side. They have to do with him feeling like he was betrayed by top executives in terms of co-founding the firm and acting like they were just as worried as him about the concerns related to AI. However, OpenAI refutes those claims. It says that the tech billionaire had another vision which included transforming the organization into one that makes profits from the start and that was as early as 2017.
Image: DIW-Aigen
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Geoffrey Hinton who earned recognition as being the top mind in the AI industry, not to mention a prominent data expert, is actually showing support for Musk and his legal case that wants to bar OpenAI from making the switch.
Hinton shared more on this front including how OpenAI was founded with a sole purpose and that was to be non-profit. To make a sudden switch is questionable and unacceptable in his eyes. Remember, the company was first known as a safe non-profit entity so it’s alarming why it thinks making the switch would be acceptable now.
Hinton who is also a Noble Peace Prize winner of 2024 for his groundbreaking work in the world of physics shared several safety-based promises inside the charter. This includes marketing AI to better human abilities instead of seeking a replacement. It also has so many tax and different benefits, thanks to its non-profit status.
The fact that it could tear that up into shreds and move on as if nothing happened in the past is not only irresponsible but also setting the wrong standards for today’s industry, he continued. Remember, OpenAI was first founded in 2015 as a research lab working on a non-profit basis by leading members Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and several others.
In 2019, it started to behave similar to the workings of a startup firm. Then it came up with capped-profit models featuring non-profits staying in control of the entire firm. For now, it’s on a mission to get a more classic for-profit stance that enables the firm to raise the capital it needs using conventional terms that’s similar to others working in this space. This was mentioned by the company itself in a blog published last week.
But Musk is keen to block this switch and has been rivaling many of its actions since he left the board in 2018. Encode already rolled out a legal document that provided more information of a court case from a group that may not be involved directly but full supports the lawsuit blocking OpenAI.
Such restructuring would undermine the company’s committment to make public safety a priority, Encode shared in its recent statement. It further added that the company is currently operating in a non-profit where essential guardrails are in place and if the switch happens, these get forfeited.
This is not the first time that we’re seeing Hinton go against OpenAI with public criticism. A press conference from October shed light on how opposed Hinton was with Sam Altman. He felt the CEO was more worried about making money and less concerned about public safety. If that was not enough, he called this entire scenario a very unfortunate situation.
In the past year, Hinton shared more on this front including how he needed to sound the alarms before AI could cause a major catastrophe for humanity. He also shared with the NYT how much he regretted his position in developing AI tech.
On the other hand, Musk’s concerns are a little more on the personal side. They have to do with him feeling like he was betrayed by top executives in terms of co-founding the firm and acting like they were just as worried as him about the concerns related to AI. However, OpenAI refutes those claims. It says that the tech billionaire had another vision which included transforming the organization into one that makes profits from the start and that was as early as 2017.
Read next: Fake Stars Are Being Used To Boost Malicious GitHub Repositories, New Study Claims
