Geoffrey Hinton, known as the “Godfather of AI,” has voiced his support for Elon Musk’s legal battle against Sam Altman’s OpenAI over its transition from a non-profit to a for-profit entity.
Business Insider reports that Geoffrey Hinton, a renowned AI pioneer and Nobel laureate, has come out in support of Elon Musk’s ongoing lawsuit against OpenAI. Musk, the co-founder of OpenAI, sought an injunction last month to block the company’s move from a non-profit research organization to a for-profit company.
Hinton, who is often referred to as the “Godfather of AI” for his groundbreaking work on neural networks, issued a statement through Encode, a youth-led advocacy group for human-centered AI. In the statement, Hinton criticized OpenAI’s decision to abandon its non-profit status, stating, “OpenAI was founded as an explicitly safety-focused non-profit and made a variety of safety related promises in its charter. It received numerous tax and other benefits from its non-profit status. Allowing it to tear all of that up when it becomes inconvenient sends a very bad message to other actors in the ecosystem.”
OpenAI was launched in 2015 as a non-profit research organization with a mission to ensure that artificial intelligence benefits humanity as a whole. However, the company has recently taken steps to transition into a for-profit entity, sparking concerns among some of its co-founders, including Musk.
Musk’s legal team filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in February, accusing the company of violating its non-profit mission by partnering with Microsoft. Although Musk briefly withdrew the lawsuit in June, he refiled it in August, with his lawyers arguing that OpenAI’s executives had “deceived” him into co-founding the company by playing on his concerns about AI’s existential risks.
Encode, the advocacy group that released Hinton’s statement, has also filed an amicus brief in support of Musk’s efforts. Adam Billen, Encode’s vice president of public policy, emphasized the importance of public involvement in shaping the future of AI technology, stating, “From the start, OpenAI’s mission was to keep its technology under the control of a nonprofit accountable to the public. Its decision to abandon that mission in favor of profit underscores why public involvement is essential in shaping the future of this transformative technology.”
This is not the first time Hinton has expressed criticism of OpenAI. In October, during a press conference following his Nobel Prize win, Hinton said that OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, is “much less concerned with safety than with profits,” describing the situation as “unfortunate.”
OpenAI recently closed a $6.6 billion funding round, valuing the company at $157 billion. The company’s rapid growth and success, particularly with its ChatGPT language model, have raised questions about the balance between the pursuit of technological advancement and the need for responsible AI development.
Read more at Business Insider here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
