Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, OpenAI for prioritising profit over humanity

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has been sued by Elon Musk for allegedly betraying the company's basic ideals by prioritising profit over the good of humanity.

Musk, the richest guy on the planet, who also serves as a founding board member of the AI startup that created ChatGPT, asserted that Altman had "set aflame" the founding agreement of OpenAI by agreeing to an investment with Microsoft, according to The Guardian.

The case, which was filed in San Francisco on Thursday, alleges that OpenAI is currently creating artificial general intelligence (AGI), a hypothetical type of AI that is capable of carrying out a variety of activities at or above the level of human intelligence, for financial gain as opposed to the good of humanity.

“OpenAI Inc has been transformed into a closed-source, de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft. Under its new board, it is not just developing but is actually refining an AGI to maximise profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity,” the lawsuit alleges.

Musk warns that artificial intelligence (AI) presents "a grave threat to humanity" in the opening of the lawsuit.

“Where some like Mr Musk see an existential threat in AGI, others see AGI as a source of profit and power,” said the lawsuit, adding that in the hands of for-profit companies such as Google, AGI poses a “particularly acute and noxious danger to humanity”.

Tech gurus such as Elon Musk worry that an artificial general intelligence (AGI) would become uncontrollable and destroy the world.

According to the lawsuit, Altman claimed to share Musk's apprehensions about artificial intelligence (AGI) and suggested in 2015 starting a nonprofit AI lab that would function as "the opposite of Google," or OpenAI. 

The three guys decided to establish a lab whose values would be codified in a founding agreement, along with Greg Brockman, the president of OpenAI, who is also facing legal action from Musk.