Elon Musk tried to take over ChatGPT maker OpenAI in 2018, report reveals

Billionaire Elon Musk reportedly attempted to take over OpenAI, the non-profit AI lab he helped found in 2015. However, Musk's bid for direct control of the company was rejected by other OpenAI founders, including CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman, according to a recent report from Semafor.

Musk resigned from OpenAI's board in 2018 due to a conflict of interest with his work at Tesla, and Semafor claims that he also reneged on a promise to provide $1 billion in funding. Instead, Musk contributed only $100 million, leaving OpenAI with substantial bills as it developed large-scale AI models such as DALL-E and the GPT series.

As a result, OpenAI announced in 2019 that it was creating a for-profit entity to fund its research, which led to a close partnership with Microsoft. Microsoft provided billions in funding and exclusive licenses to use OpenAI's technology in its products. This move towards corporate interests has concerned many in the AI community, who see it as a betrayal of OpenAI's founding principles and a dangerous precedent for the world.

Also read: OpenAI issues warning to ChatGPT users after bug leaks private conversations

OpenAI's partnership with Microsoft has changed how the company shares its research. When OpenAI unveiled its latest AI language model, GPT-4, earlier this month, it did not disclose how it was created or its training data. OpenAI's Chief Scientist, Ilya Sutskever, explained that this was to keep a competitive advantage over rivals and to prevent misuse of its technology. However, many AI experts argue that this approach limits the ability of the community to understand potential threats posed by these systems and concentrates power in corporate hands.

Since the partnership with Microsoft, OpenAI and Microsoft have been launching AI services and products rapidly. Microsoft has integrated OpenAI's technology into Windows and its Office suite. OpenAI has expanded the capabilities of its chatbot, ChatGPT, to interface with other sites and services via plug-ins. This move has been compared to giving the bot "eyes and ears," but some experts have raised safety concerns.

Elon Musk has expressed dismay about OpenAI's shift towards corporate interests and Microsoft's control. In a tweet in February, Musk stated that OpenAI "has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft," and that this was "not what I intended at all."

Also Read

Netflix is going all in on gaming, 40 new games announced for 2023

Parents can be jailed for sharing their child's photos on social media in this country