OpenAI and Elon Musk: Clarification of Partnership and Mission

OpenAI has released a detailed account of its historical relationship with Elon Musk to clarify the organization's transition from a non-profit to a for-profit entity and its commitment to the mission of ensuring Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity. The organization intends to dismiss all legal claims brought by Musk.

Transition to For-Profit Structure for Resource Acquisition

Building AGI requires vast quantities of compute and capital—billions of dollars per year—which OpenAI determined was unattainable through a non-profit structure alone.

While the initial plan in 2015 involved raising $100 million, Elon Musk suggested a $1 billion funding commitment to avoid appearing "hopeless." However, actual contributions to the non-profit were less than $45 million from Musk and over $90 million from other donors. By early 2017, the leadership realized that the scale of compute required for AGI would necessitate a for-profit entity to acquire the necessary resources.

Disagreement Over Control and the Tesla Merger Proposal

In late 2017, OpenAI and Musk discussed creating a for-profit entity, but negotiations failed because Musk sought majority equity, initial board control, and the role of CEO. OpenAI leadership felt that granting any single individual absolute control over the organization would be contrary to its mission.

During these discussions, Musk suggested merging OpenAI into Tesla, proposing that OpenAI "attach to Tesla as its cash cow" to serve as a counterweight to Google. Musk eventually left OpenAI in February 2018, stating that the probability of OpenAI's success was zero and that he intended to build an AGI competitor within Tesla.

Commitment to Broad Benefit and Open Source Clarification

OpenAI maintains that its mission is to create broadly distributed benefits through widely available tools, rather than strictly open-sourcing the science of AGI.

The organization highlights several real-world applications of its technology:

• Albania: Using OpenAI tools to accelerate EU accession by up to 5.5 years.
• Digital Green: Reducing the cost of agricultural extension services by 100x for farmers in Kenya and India.
• Lifespan (Rhode Island): Using GPT-4 to simplify surgical consent forms from a college reading level to a 6th grade level.
• Iceland: Utilizing GPT-4 to preserve the Icelandic language.

Regarding the "open" nature of the company, OpenAI cites a communication between Ilya Sutskever and Elon Musk where Sutskever explained that as AI development progressed, it would be necessary to be less open about the science to ensure safety, while ensuring everyone benefits from the fruits of the AI. Musk reportedly replied "Yup" to this explanation.