Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has responded to Elon Musk after being criticized by him. Musk, who is one of the initial founders of OpenAI, had recently tweeted that the company had become a “maximum profit company” that was not in line with his intentions. Musk’s comments were prompted by a tweet questioning why he helped found OpenAI when he believes that AI is a major risk to society and needs further regulation. In response, Musk stated that OpenAI was created as a nonprofit open-source company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but it has since become a closed-source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft. Altman has now hit back at Musk’s comments.
During an episode of the “On With Kara Swisher” podcast, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed Elon Musk’s recent criticism of the company. Altman emphasized that OpenAI is “independent” from Microsoft and that the tech giant does not have a seat on OpenAI’s board. He went on to state that “most of” Musk’s comments were not true and that Musk likely made the remarks out of concern. Altman’s comments suggest that there is a difference in opinion between Musk and OpenAI’s leadership regarding the company’s direction and relationship with Microsoft.
“To say a positive thing about Elon, I think he really does care about a good future with AGI,” stated Altman. “I mean, he’s a jerk, whatever else you want to say about him — he has a style that is not a style that I’d want to have for myself,” Altman mentioned to Swisher.
“But I think he does really care, and he is feeling very stressed about what the future’s going to look like for humanity,” Altman added.
In 2015, Elon Musk co-founded OpenAI with other prominent figures from Silicon Valley, including Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman, and Peter Thiel. Together, they pledged $1 billion to the project. Initially, OpenAI was established as a nonprofit organization, but it relinquished its nonprofit status in 2019.
“We’ve created OpenAI LP, a new “capped-profit” company that allows us to rapidly increase our investments in compute and talent while including checks and balances to actualize our mission,” states the company on its website.
Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates & Live Business News.
