The 'Godfather' of AI is Backing Musk's Lawsuit Against OpenAI

Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton has backed Elon Musk's legal challenge against OpenAI, criticizing the AI startup's shift from its nonprofit origins toward a for-profit model. "OpenAI was founded as an explicitly safety-focused non-profit and made various safety related promises in its charter," Hinton said in a statement through AI advocacy group Encode. "Allowing it to tear all of that up when it becomes inconvenient sends a very bad message to other actors in the ecosystem."

Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but left in 2018, filed an injunction last month to block the company's transition to a for-profit entity. OpenAI dismissed the filing as "utterly without merit." Hinton, who won the 2024 Physics Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in neural networks, has previously criticized OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in October for prioritizing profits over safety concerns.

Iâ(TM)m Torn

[Fnord666]

On the one hand fsck Elon Musk and everything he wants. On the other, I would prefer to see openAI remain, well, open.

Re:

[dfghjk]

In what way is openAI "open" now, and how does it changing its non-profit status make it, well, not open? What does "open" even mean here?

Re:I'm Torn

[JamesTRexx]

What does "open" even mean here?

Open means whatever marketing trolls and interest groups make of it. Just like "free", "innovation", "improved", "natural", "think of the children", "family values", "decent", etcetera, etcetera.

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[nonBORG]

You let your personal bias corrupt your critical thinking. What is the matter with Musk, is it because he is white, rich, or right wing (depending on where you are standing.) It is one thing to say I will not be racists and hate groups of people but if you then hate individual people then you are just the same. I suggest you hate his decisions or positions but not the person then you can refer to each thing related to Elon musk without the racist (against a group of size 1) blinders.

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[newbie_fantod]

A single individual does not constitute a race and holding opinions about a persons conduct does not constitute racism.

What is the matter with Musk, is it because he is white

Indeed, you seem to be the one struggling with your racial prejudices here

Re:

[nonBORG]

If you define it as hating a group of people then obviously you are wrong. Since the group of people would be represented by a list with n elements containing the identities of those in the group. Hating Elon Musk meets that criteria where the list contains 1 element.

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[martin-boundary]

You're definitely a troll. Questioning and redefining basic terms that have a clear and common usage going back decades just to gaslight others is not cool. Move on.

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[narcc]

Judging by your .sig, you are not qualified to lecture anyone about critical thinking.

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[nonBORG]

If you are judging my message by my signature then perhaps you should start reading messages. We already have plenty of proof of election fraud and hopefully it now gets properly investigated and we will see. Possibly evidence and investigations are beyond your criteria for evaluation but instead you are pre disposed to your own fixed beliefs, in this case it is your critical thinking that is in doubt.

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[narcc]

I have. You're a crackpot. You believe easily-disproved nonsense without question and deny any objective fact that doesn't conform to your preconceptions.

You are clearly incapable of anything remotely like 'critical thinking'.

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[nonBORG]

You throw around statements like easily-disproved which is ridicules and shows your lack of understanding of even what you are saying. How can you possibly disprove a negative like that. That would be provide proof that cheating did not happen. Turn on your brain and turn off the MSM.

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[narcc]

LOL! You crackpots will believe anything but the truth!

You are the one making the claims of a stolen election. You have no evidence to support those claims. What you call "evidence" was debunked ages ago, from your matrix-style data display to your laughable mules video.

You believe that bullshit anyway because you're really, really, stupid.

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[nonBORG]

So when you say easily disproved you mean by a wave of the hand and oh you don't have any evidence. That is not actually disproving anything, you talk a big game but it comes down to you are not smart because ...

Your "case" is Intellectually dishonest and just you are not in my club because you believe the wrong thing so you must be wrong. Carry on with the name calling game rather than actually engaging your brain.

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[narcc]

All of your so-called "evidence" has been conclusively disproved. Of course, most of what you have is bold assertion based on nothing.

It's beyond pathetic.

There's no great conspiracy here. You just believe a load of bullshit ... because you're really, really, stupid.

Try pulling your head out of your ass. That's a good first step.

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[pi_rules]

On the other, I would prefer to see openAI remain, well, open.

Open as in... open to accepting credit cards? That's the only part of them that's open.

Re: Iâ(TM)m Torn

[bradley13]

Why the Musk hate? He kick-started the EV business, he co-founded OpenAI, SpaceX is a game-changer, Neuralink may well also be a huge game-changer, etc, etc.

The man is pretty amazing. If you disagree with his politics, well, maybe you need to reconsider *your* position.

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[narcc]

You're delusional.

Re: Iâ(TM)m Torn

[bradley13]

The only people calling the AfD "neo-nazi" are the established parties trying to stem their losses.

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[SpinyNorman]

There are many companies/organizations developing frontier models, so I'm not sure who you are referring to as unconstrained.

Probably OpenAI's biggest competition right now is Anthropic, who, while commercial (although also incorporated as a "public benefit corporation"), are self-constrained by their own AI constitution and Responsible Scaling Policy (an explicit set of capability levels, ways to test for them, and corresponding safety measures that need to be taken before they release something at that le

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[dfghjk]

"There are many companies/organizations developing frontier models, so I'm not sure who you are referring to as unconstrained."
Constrained in the sense used in the article, it's not unclear. Constrained to the limitations of its non-profit status.

"Probably OpenAI's biggest competition right now is Anthropic..."
But that's not the competition that Musk cares about. Hopefully that doesn't need to be explained. Musk isn't doing charity work, he's financing a lawsuit for his own benefit.

"Now, OpenAI have at l

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[dgatwood]

"Allowing it to tear all of that up when it becomes inconvenient sends a very bad message to other actors in the ecosystem."

Or a really excellent message, when all the "other actors" have torn all that up already.

The goal here is to constrain one company so that it cannot compete with another that is not constrained in that very way, and he's taking sides with the unconstrained?

He's taking sides with the companies that got there on their own, without taking money from donors who believed that they were supporting a nonprofit, only to find themselves with no equity in a large company that they helped create with their donations. And much as I hate to agree with Musk on much of anything these days, he's absolutely right.

If you're going to start a for-profit company, start a for-profit company. If you're going to start a nonprofit company, start a nonprofit company. But it's not r

Rollback tax

[will4]

There's the "Rollback Tax" concept in government where using a non-profit or other designation to exempt all of some of your revenue, assets, etc. from taxation may result in taxes for past years if that non-profit or other designation is changed.

https://www.har.com/blog_12145... [har.com]
Texas has an agricultural exemption for land and buildings so that farmers near a city pay taxes on the agruicultural production of their land instead of higher taxes due to the nearby city property values.

"One of the most eye-opening aspects of the ag exemption is the potential for a rollback tax. If you change the use of the land from agricultural to non-agricultural, the county can assess up to five years of back taxes based on the difference between the taxes paid under the ag valuation and what would have been paid if the land were taxed at its market value. This can result in a sizable tax bill, underscoring the importance of long-term planning and consideration before altering the use of ag-exempt land."

The usual story

[JamesTRexx]

Successful project compels true human nature (greed) and draws the irk of others who benefit from keeping it down.

Sure, there are exceptions, but they are rare. I'm sure Musk has an angle.

Did anyone here

[hdyoung]

Expect Altman’s company to remain nonprofit and safety-focused for more than the few weeks required to kick the project off and get some initial investment? Anyone. Anyone?

You did? Oh, you sweet, innocent child. Never change, little buddy.

And it’s hilarious that Musk, of all people, is bringing this lawsuit. This is Mr. “I’m gonna suck 50 billion out of my companie’s market cap just cause I can” we’re talking about, getting all breatheless and worked up in pu

Musk might be evil but OpenAI is sleazy.

[porkchop_d_clown]

OpenAI appears to have been completely sucked in by greed and just shouldn’t be allowed to stop being a non-profit.

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[Mirnotoriety]

Do please enumerate why Musk might be evil. Provide full citations.

Out of order

[GrahamJ]

I guess no one told him you're supposed to play the stupid games first