Elon Musk testified for more than seven hours this week in Oakland, California, in a trial that will determine the future of OpenAI. The world's richest man cast his lawsuit against the ChatGPT owner as a defense of charitable giving.
Musk is suing CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman, alleging they betrayed him and the public by abandoning the original mission to develop AI for humanity's benefit, not private profit.
Musk repeatedly described OpenAI as a charity, though the word doesn't appear in the company's 2015 founding blog post. He testified, "It was specifically meant to be for a charity that does not benefit any individual person."
Musk also took credit for the lab's existence. "I came up with the idea, the name, recruited the key people, taught them everything I know, provided all of the initial funding," he said, adding that he recruited top researcher Ilya Sutskever from Google.
On AI safety, Musk testified that Google co-founder Larry Page lacked concern about AI wiping out humanity, calling him a "speciesist" for caring more about humans than AI. "The reason OpenAI exists is because Larry Page called me a 'speciesist,'" Musk said.
When Microsoft invested $10 billion in OpenAI in late 2022, Musk said it felt like a "bait and switch" and that Altman's offer to buy stock "felt like a bribe."
Musk was questioned why he used OpenAI's model to train his own AI company, xAI. "It is standard practice to use other AIs to validate your AI," he testified.
Cross-examination was tense. Musk accused defense lawyer William Savitt of cutting him off. Outside court, Musk's lawyer warned, "Extinction risk is a real problem. We all could die." The judge limited expert testimony on that risk, noting the irony that Musk is building his own AI company.