(Not So)OpenAI
The company's non-profit, open source mission was always marketing schtick
Last week, Elon Musk, who helped found OpenAI in 2015, sued the company for "breaching a contract by putting profits and commercial interests in developing artificial intelligence ahead of the public good."
In the lawsuit, he is arguing that OpenAI has not stuck to its "promise" to be open — i.e., open source — with its A.I. technologies and how it plans to use them. You might think how noble of him to stick up for the little guy (us). In reality, Musk's reasoning for this lawsuit is twofold; he has a bruised ego from his shitty Grok competitor, and he and the many other A.I. creators stand to benefit enormously from being able to access OpenAI's code. Musk says he will drop the lawsuit if OpenAI changes its name to ClosedAI.
HAR HAR HAR.
Not only is that man an entrepreneurial god, but he's also a comical genius. (To confirm, that was sarcasm.)
Now, OpenAI has written its rebuttal. The attached emails show Musk himself was pushing for the company to pursue profit from the get-go and even suggested that it merge with Tesla to become its "cash cow." OpenAI has shared these emails to debunk the claims made by Musk, implying he also wanted the company to put profits and commercial interests in developing artificial intelligence ahead of the public good.
It seems they have been successful in doing that. But, they've also revealed that the company has long been at odds with its supposed non-profit mission.
One email shows Musk and the main players of Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever and Greg Brockman, acknowledging that OpenAI could only be open to a point. Sutskever wrote, "As we get closer to building AI, it will make sense to start being less open. The Open in openAI means that everyone should benefit from the fruits of AI after its built, but it's totally OK to not share the science."
In other words, “it's cool to share our stuff while we're building something that may turn out to be nothing. But, if we gain traction or some of that sweet VC money, we should absolutely not be open source to ensure we kill the competition and keep that money flowing in.”
It seems OpenAI always knew it would go the same way most startups do. First comes the vague promises, shouting about serving humanity or changing the world. We’re different. Then comes the breakout product, followed by the avalanche of hype. As soon as there is even a whiff of venture capital, it's time to abandon all ethical development, turn off the moral compass and suck up every dollar available. Let's not forget that OpenAI hasn't even gone the full nine yards yet by going public — the true point at which it will throw customer value aside in favor of shareholder value.
Let's take a step back. Until the boardroom drama that occurred late last year, OpenAI had an interesting business structure. It had a non-profit board that acted as a balance and check, ensuring the company's work aligned with human interests. It controlled OpenAI, Inc., the non-profit, which takes "precedence over any obligation to generate a profit."
There was a small problem. Sam Altman had become the face of OpenAI Global, a capped-profit company. He was pushing it forward as a for-profit company, driving users, growth, VC investment and valuation (it was thought to be over $90 billion.) And he was doing very well. Yet, the way the structure worked gave Altman no control, evidenced by the board's ability to fire him on a whim when they couldn't handle how OpenAI was operating. It had lots of employees, lots of deals with corporations, and was on track to make over $1 billion in revenue. It was clashing with the aims of the top level. OpenAI was a non-profit organization with a hot-shot startup threatening to become one of the most valuable businesses ever seen. It couldn’t figure out how to make these to coexist, and started to wonder about slowing down.
And so they fired Sam. Then as quickly as they fired him, they pandered to him after the immediate backlash. Sam Altman returned as CEO with a new temporary board that would eventually pick new members to "reset the governance of OpenAI."
Altman and the VCs got what they wanted — the non-profit side no longer had any power, any ability to act as they so-called balance and check.
OpenAI was now a for-profit company.
We assumed at that point that the desire to switch the mission was based on the fact that ChatGPT had been deemed a huge success. Had that changed viewpoints (read: had execs seeing the dollar signs)? Based on the company's statement, this was always the plan. The altruistic, not-for-profit jargon was nothing more than a marketing ploy. It was a trick to reel in investors and supporters who could claim to champion some higher-level cause, all the while the company was pushing itself forward as fast as possible to get to a stage where it could command serious money. Just look at the recent claims from Altman about needing $7 trillion to build AI chip factories. Say what? No one claiming their mission to be not-for-profit would be putting the feelers out to raise 10% of the world's GDP to expand their company's operations.
We should always be wary of any entrepreneur declaring their mission is altruistic. The system is not set up for that. There are too many interested parties, too many egos, too much dick-swinging, too much money and too much power at stake. It’s all smoke and mirrors, all hiding the ulterior motive that is stitched into the very fabric of silicon valley and entrepreneurship — money, money, money.
On the Trend Mill this week
Bitcoin reaches an all-time high — The cryptocurrency hit a new ALT on March 5th, briefly reaching a high of over $69,000. Alas, in true Bitcoin fashion, it immediately plummeted to $62,000. Still, the bull run has got consumers interested again, and as we all know, once the hype train gets rolling, it is hard to put the brakes on.
Meta's app outage — Just as cryptocurrencies were flying, Meta's suite of apps decided to down tools. For two hours, many users couldn't use Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp or the Oculus. And for those two hours, the world was probably a happier place. We can only hope for a more permanent outage one day.
Apple flexes its monopoly powers — The feud between Apple and Epic Games went up a notch this week, with Apple terminating Epic's Developer Account. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney criticized how Apple is rolling out alternative app stores on iOS in the EU, so Apple has retailated, calling the company "verifiably untrustworthy." These two will be cozying up for another date in court soon.
Thanks for sharing, OpenAI's emails reveal early profit motives, challenging its non-profit claims.