A diverse coalition of young people from multiple countries is currently mobilizing to oppose OpenAI's plan to restructure as a fully for-profit company. This movement has garnered significant attention in the industry.
On Monday, Encode, a youth advocacy organization representing young people from dozens of countries, submitted an amicus brief to the court, supporting Elon Musk's ongoing lawsuit. Musk aims to use legal means to prevent OpenAI from transitioning to a for-profit entity. Notably, this brief has received strong support from Geoffrey Hinton, a renowned authority in artificial intelligence and recipient of the Nobel Prize and Turing Award. In a statement released by Encode, Hinton emphasized that OpenAI was initially founded with safety as its primary goal and made several safety-related commitments in its charter. However, OpenAI is now attempting to abandon these commitments and transform into a for-profit company, sending a negative signal to the entire ecosystem.
In recent interviews, Hinton also stated that he believes the likelihood of artificial intelligence leading to human extinction within the next 30 years has increased to between 10% and 20%, a more pessimistic view than his previous predictions.
Although OpenAI is currently a for-profit company, its operations are still controlled by a non-profit board, which limits its ability to expand its mission, raise funds, and compensate investors. Last week, OpenAI officially announced its intention to restructure as a more traditional for-profit company. Despite this change having been in the works for some time, Musk, as a co-founder of OpenAI, decided to take action and filed a federal lawsuit in November, seeking a preliminary injunction to block the transition.
Encode argues that OpenAI's plan to convert from a non-profit organization to a Delaware public benefit corporation would seriously violate specific safety commitments it made to the public. Particularly, Encode questions whether a for-profit company can truly fulfill the commitment to "stop competing and start assisting" any organization that aligns with its values and appears close to developing general artificial intelligence.
Sneha Revanur, president and founder of Encode, strongly urged in a statement: "Currently, only a few companies are racing to develop and deploy transformative AI, internalizing profits while externalizing the consequences to all of humanity. The court must intervene to ensure that AI development serves the public interest."
In response to this situation, OpenAI asserts that Musk lacks standing to sue and accuses him of trying to gain an unfair competitive advantage for his own AI startup, xAI. To this end, OpenAI has publicly disclosed a large number of Musk's emails and other information, including several emails that allegedly show Musk advocating for the organization to become a for-profit entity as early as 2017.
