Elon Musk Calls for OpenAI Ex-CEO Investigation After Receiving These Documents
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Tech mogul Elon Musk, Tesla CEO and owner of X app as well as several other innovative companies, has had his attention caught by a letter about OpenAI that he just received.
Musk did not mention who exactly the sender of this letter was, but he stated that he believes this case is "worth investigating." The link shared by Musk shows the "404 error"; however, screenshots of the letter were shared by a commentator under Musk's tweet.
Elon Musk shares OpenAI former employees' letter
The screenshots of the letter from "Concerned Former OpenAI Employees." The authors of the letter, who preferred to stay anonymous, claimed that a large amount of the company's staffers were pushed out in 2018, when OpenAI transitioned to the "for-profit" model from a "non-profit" one.
The letter was addressed to the board of directors of OpenAI, calling for them to investigate these actions of Former CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman. At present, both have left OpenAI, but negotiations are underway with the board for them to come back.
The letter particularly claims that the attrition of OpenAI staff during the aforementioned transition period for a new operational model was 50% between January 2018 and July 2020; they gave this as proof of the company ousting a lot of employees and terminating contracts with them.
The letter also claims that the "concerned former employees" witnessed "a disturbing pattern of deceit and manipulation by Sam Altman and Greg Brockman driven by their insatiable pursuit of achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)." The letter further states, "Their methods, however, raised serious doubts about their true intentions and the extent to which they generally prioritize the benefit of all humanity."
Yuri MolchanElon Musk gets a mention
Those employees who dared to raise their concerns while seeing this, were silenced or pushed out, the authors of the letter openly state. This constant and systematic silencing created an atmosphere of "fear and intimidation, effectively stifling any meaningful discussion about the ethical implications of OpenAI’s work."
Here's where Elon Musk is mentioned: "Sam's discreet, yet routine exploitation of OpenAI's non-profit resources to advance his personal goals, particularly motivated by his grudge against Elon following their falling out."
Musk contributed a substantial amount of funds as a cofounder of OpenAI in 2015, when it was still a nonprofit, but then the Tesla CEO left since he did not like the idea of OpenAI's plans to begin working for profit. Later, Microsoft piqued interest in OpenAI and invested in it heavily several times.
Dogecoin cofounder Billy Markus left a comment under Musk's tweet, supporting his suggestion of having this case investigated, adding that the "gist was very unconvincing," stating that he did not quite trust the contents of the anonymous letter.
Other members of the crypto community also supported Musk, stating that AI in general must be supervised.
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