Elon Musk sues ChatGPT founder and parent company

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk on Thursday sued OpenAI and its founder Sam Altman, accusing Altman and the company of breach of contract and engaging in unfair business practices. The lawsuit alleges that Altman and his associates abandoned their original commitment to transparency and the public good and instead developed artificial intelligence as a “source of profit and power.” Musk said that OpenAI’s product GPT-4, included as part of the ChatGPT chatbot, had become a Microsoft product, even though Musk and others donated to its development in hopes it would take an open-source, non-profit approach that would benefit the public, rather than be tied to a single company.

What is Musk asking for? He’s asking for a court to order OpenAI to make its technology and research available to the public and for the court to prevent Microsoft and other private entities from financially profiting off OpenAI’s research. He’s also asking the court to order Microsoft to give up all its profits from OpenAI’s work.

Dig deeper: Read Brad Littlejohn’s column in WORLD Opinions about Elon Musk’s Neuralink: “Thanks, Elon, for making us cyborgs.”