Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI is now backed by the 'godfather' of AI: Report

Hinton has also criticised OpenAI cofounder Sam Altman, saying he is “much less concerned with safety than with profits,” and calling this, “unfortunate”

Updated on: Jan 1, 2025, 12:58:08 IST

By HT News Desk | Edited by Abhyjith K. Ashokan

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Geoffrey Hinton, known as the godfather of AI due to his work in neural networks is supporting Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI becoming a for-profit company, according to a Business Insider report.

OpenAI was launched as a nonprofit research organization in 2015, but has recently started taking steps to become a for-profit company. Musk, who cofounded the AI giant is trying to block that move now, despite having left its board in 2018 (Getty Images)

Hinton won the Nobel Prize in physics in October 2024 and has spent more than a decade at Google before quitting in May 2023.

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"OpenAI was founded as an explicitly safety-focused non-profit and made a variety of safety related promises in its charter," the report quoted Hinton as having said in a statement issued by Encode, a youth-led advocacy organization for human-centered AI, on Monday.

He also added that OpenAI has “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," he said.

Encode then filed an amicus brief, supporting Musk's efforts on Friday.

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Hinton has also been critical against Sam Altman, one of the cofounder of OpenAI, saying he is “much less concerned with safety than with profits,” and calling this, “unfortunate.”

OpenAI was launched as a nonprofit research organization in 2015, but has recently started taking steps to become a for-profit company. Musk, who cofounded the AI giant is trying to block that move now, despite having left its board in 2018.

He also filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing it of violating its nonprofit mission by partnering with Microsoft. He then withdrew the lawsuit in June and refiled it again in August.

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His lawyers argued that OpenAI's executives "deceived" Musk into cofounding the company by playing onto his concerns about AI's existential risks.

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