In newly revealed old emails, Sam Altman "sounded out" and convinced Elon Musk to spend money to found and develop OpenAI.
On November 16, Elon Musk’s legal team added new documents to the re-filed lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI in early August in a San Francisco court. The content mainly outlines the formation of the AI company, now valued at $157 billion, including the initial emails Altman sent him when he proposed the idea in 2015.
Accordingly, in early March 2015, Musk wrote an open letter to the US government, emphasizing the need to safely manage the creation of AI. Altman sensed an "opportunity" after reading the letter, so he emailed Musk.
“I’ve thought a lot about whether it’s possible to stop humans from developing AI. I think the answer is definitely no,” Altman wrote. “If it’s going to happen, it seems like it would be better for someone other than Google to do it first.”
Altman wondered whether Y Combinator, the venture capital fund he once chaired, should start a “Manhattan Project for AI.” He then thought about recruiting about 50 of the best people for a new project that would operate “as a nonprofit for the world, but the people working on it would receive startup-like money if the project succeeded.
“Maybe that's worth talking about,” Musk responded.
A month later, Altman sent a new email, detailing his proposal for an AI lab with five caveats. First, the organization’s mission was to create the first general AI and use it to empower individuals, a “distributed version of the safest future,” with safety being the top priority.
Altman also said the ideal initial team would be around 7-10 people and gradually expand, working from his home in Mountain View. He also proposed a five-person board of directors, including Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Pierre Omidyar, Dustin Moskovitz and Altman.
"The technology will be owned by the Foundation and used for the good of the world. If there is any ambiguity, the five of us will vote. Researchers will receive significant funding but it will not be correlated with what they build. This will eliminate some conflicts. We will regularly discuss which models should be open sourced and which should not. At some point, we will find a person to run the group, but that person should not be on the board," Altman wrote in the letter.
Altman suggested that Musk should meet with the best people in person once a month to help the project move forward. He also drew up a plan and only needed the American billionaire to sign off. "Once everything was in place, I would announce it with a message like, 'Now that we're doing this, I've thought a lot about the restrictions the world needs to keep safe,' and finally, I'm happy to have you sign off," Altman wrote.
“Agreed on all of them,” Musk replied.
After that email, OpenAI was born.
Musk's legal team stressed that Altman "tried to convince the Tesla CEO to put his financial resources and connections into the case." In addition, the American billionaire also added Microsoft to the list of defendants, accusing OpenAI of "de facto merger" with the software company and engaging in anti-competitive activities in the field of AI.
The parties have not commented.
In 2018, Musk left the OpenAI board after saying that "AI could be more dangerous than nuclear weapons." He has since repeatedly criticized the company he co-founded for being driven by profit rather than serving humanity. He sued OpenAI in February, then withdrew the lawsuit before re-suing in August.
Microsoft is OpenAI's largest investor, reportedly investing $13 billion, according to Business Insider. Over the years, the company has steadily built up its position in the company behind ChatGPT.
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