Musk had initially sued OpenAI in March 2024, alleging breach of contracts, unfair business practices, and failure in fiduciary duty. He claimed that his contributions to the company were made “in exchange for and in reliance on promises that those assets were irrevocably dedicated to building AI for public benefit, with only safety as a countervailing concern.”

The lawsuit sought remedies for “breach of contract, promissory estoppel, breach of fiduciary duty, unfair business practices, and accounting,” as well as specific performance, restitution, and damages.

However, Musk’s filings to withdraw the case provided no explanation for abandoning the lawsuit. OpenAI had previously called Musk’s claims “incoherent” and that his inability to produce a contract made his breach claims difficult to prove, stating that documents provided by Musk “contradict his allegations as to the alleged terms of the agreement.”

The withdrawal of the lawsuit comes at a time when Musk is strongly opposing Apple’s plans to integrate ChatGPT into its operating systems.

During Apple’s keynote event announcing Apple Intelligence for iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, Musk threatened to ban Apple devices from his companies, calling the integration “an unacceptable security violation.”

Despite assurances from Apple and OpenAI that user data would only be shared with explicit consent and that interactions would be secure, Musk questioned Apple’s ability to ensure data security, stating, “Apple has no clue what’s actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI. They’re selling you down the river.”

Since bringing the lawsuit against OpenAI, Musk has also created his own AI company, xAI, and secured over $6 billion in funding for his plans to advance the Grok chatbot on his social network, X.

While Musk’s reasoning for dropping the OpenAI lawsuit remains unclear, his actions suggest a potential shift in focus towards advancing his own AI endeavours while continuing to vocalise his criticism of OpenAI through social media rather than the courts.

See also: DuckDuckGo releases portal giving private access to AI models

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Musk’s lawsuit accuses OpenAI of breaching its non-profit status and reneging on a founding agreement to keep the organisation non-profit and release its AI technology publicly. However, OpenAI has refuted these allegations, stating that there is no such agreement with Musk and branding it as a mere “fiction.”

According to court filings, OpenAI asserts that there is no existing agreement with Musk, contradicting his assertions in the lawsuit.

The organisation further alleges that Musk had actually supported the idea of transitioning OpenAI into a for-profit entity under his control. It is claimed that Musk advocated for full control of the company as CEO, majority equity ownership, and even suggested tethering it to Tesla for financial backing. However, negotiations between Musk and OpenAI did not culminate in an agreement, leading to Musk’s withdrawal from the project.

OpenAI’s rebuttal highlights purported emails exchanged between Musk and the organisation, indicating his prior knowledge and support for its transition to a for-profit model. The company suggests that Musk’s lawsuit is driven by his desire to claim credit for OpenAI’s successes after he disengaged from the project.

In response to Musk’s legal action, OpenAI has portrayed his motives as self-serving rather than altruistic, asserting that his lawsuit is a bid to further his own commercial interests under the guise of championing humanity’s cause.

Meanwhile, Musk’s own foray into the realm of artificial intelligence with his company xAI has drawn attention.

Musk announced xAI’s intention to open source its Grok chatbot shortly after OpenAI’s publication of emails purportedly demonstrating Musk’s prior awareness of its non-open source intentions. While this move could be interpreted as a retaliatory gesture against OpenAI, it also presents an opportunity for xAI to garner feedback from developers and enhance its technology.

The legal clash between Musk and OpenAI underscores the complexities surrounding the development and governance of AI technologies, as well as the competing interests within the tech industry.

(Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash)

See also: OpenAI announces new board lineup and governance structure

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A blog post from OpenAI, in response to a lawsuit filed by Musk against the company, revealed email communications from 2015 to 2018 when Musk was still involved with the company’s operations. 

In one email from 2017 – as OpenAI was exploring a transition to a for-profit model to secure more funding – Musk reportedly wanted majority equity, control of the board of directors, and the CEO position. However, OpenAI felt this level of control by one individual would go against its mission.

“Elon wanted us to merge with Tesla or he wanted full control,” wrote OpenAI in their blog post. “Elon left OpenAI, saying there needed to be a relevant competitor to Google/DeepMind and that he was going to do it himself. He said he’d be supportive of us finding our own path.”

When the merger discussions stalled, Musk suggested in 2018 that OpenAI could become attached to Tesla as a path for the automaker to provide funding. “Tesla is the only path that could even hope to hold a candle to Google,” Musk wrote in an email forwarded to OpenAI.

The blog post indicates these merger or acquisition proposals from Musk did not ultimately succeed, and he soon left the company. In a final email cited, Musk said his “probability assessment of OpenAI being relevant to DeepMind/Google without a dramatic change in execution and resources is 0%.”

Musk’s lawsuit, filed in March 2024, accuses OpenAI of breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and unfair competition. It alleges the company has become a “closed-source de facto subsidiary” of Microsoft after taking $13 billion in investment from the tech giant.

OpenAI denies the claims, stating Musk was aware the “Open” in its name did not mean it had to open-source all its AI technology to the public. The company expressed sadness that the situation has devolved into litigation with someone they “deeply admired.”

Musk has not yet publicly responded to the blog post from OpenAI. The lawsuit seeks to compel OpenAI to make its research freely available and prohibit exclusive arrangements benefiting individual companies.

“We intend to move to dismiss all of Elon’s claims,” says OpenAI.

(Photo by Austin Ramsey on Unsplash)

See also: Anthropic’s latest AI model beats rivals and achieves industry first

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The legal battle, unfolding in the Superior Court of California for the County of San Francisco, revolves around OpenAI’s departure from its foundational mission of advancing open-source artificial general intelligence (AGI) for the betterment of humanity.

Musk was a co-founder and early backer of OpenAI. According to Musk, Altman and Greg Brockman (another co-founder and current president of OpenAI) convinced him to bankroll the startup in 2015 on promises that it would remain a nonprofit.

In his legal challenge, Musk accuses OpenAI of straying from its principles through a collaboration with Microsoft—alleging that the partnership prioritises proprietary technology over the original ethos of open-source advancement.

Musk’s grievances include claims of contract breach, violation of fiduciary duty, and unfair business practices. He calls upon OpenAI to realign with its nonprofit objectives and seeks an injunction to halt the commercial exploitation of AGI technology.

At the heart of the dispute is OpenAI’s recent launch of GPT-4 in March 2023. Musk contends that unlike its predecessors, GPT-4 represents a shift towards closed-source models—a move he believes favours Microsoft’s financial interests at the expense of OpenAI’s altruistic mission.

Founded in 2015 as a nonprofit AI research lab, OpenAI transitioned into a commercial entity in 2020. OpenAI has now adopted a profit-driven approach, with revenues reportedly surpassing $2 billion annually.

Musk, who has long voiced concerns about the risks posed by AI, has called for robust government regulation and responsible AI development. He questions the technical expertise of OpenAI’s current board and highlights the removal and subsequent reinstatement of Altman in November 2023 as evidence of a profit-oriented agenda aligned with Microsoft’s interests.

See also: Mistral AI unveils LLM rivalling major players

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GitHub Copilot uses technology from OpenAI to help generate code and speed up software development. Microsoft says that it is trained on “billions of lines of public code … written by others.”

Last month, developer and lawyer Matthew Butterick announced that he’d partnered with the Joseph Saveri Law Firm to investigate whether Copilot infringed on the rights of developers by scraping their code and not providing due attribution.

This could unwittingly cause serious legal problems for GitHub Copilot users.

“Copilot leaves copyleft compliance as an exercise for the user. Users likely face growing liability that only increases as Copilot improves,” wrote Bradley M. Kuhn of Software Freedom Conservancy earlier this year.

“Users currently have no methods besides serendipity and educated guesses to know whether Copilot’s output is copyrighted by someone else.”

Copilot is powered by Codex, an AI system created by OpenAI and licensed to Microsoft. Codex currently offers suggestions on how to finish a line but Microsoft has touted its ability to suggest larger blocks of code, like the entire body of a function.

Butterick and litigators from the Joseph Saveri Law Firm have now filed a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI in a US federal court in San Francisco.

In addition to violating attribution requirements of open-source licenses, the claimants allege the defendants have violated:

• GitHub’s own terms of ser­vice and pri­vacy poli­cies;
• DMCA § 1202, which for­bids the removal of copy­right-man­age­ment infor­ma­tion;
• the Cal­i­for­nia Con­sumer Pri­vacy Act;
• and other laws giv­ing rise to related legal claims.

The claimants acknowledge that this is the first step in what will likely be a long journey.

In a post on the claim’s website, Butterick wrote:

“As far as we know, this is the first class-action case in the US chal­leng­ing the train­ing and out­put of AI sys­tems. It will not be the last. AI sys­tems are not exempt from the law. 

Those who cre­ate and oper­ate these sys­tems must remain account­able. If com­pa­nies like Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI choose to dis­re­gard the law, they should not expect that we the pub­lic will sit still.

AI needs to be fair & eth­i­cal for every­one. If it’s not, then it can never achieve its vaunted aims of ele­vat­ing human­ity. It will just become another way for the priv­i­leged few to profit from the work of the many.”

AI News will keep you updated on the progress of the lawsuit as it emerges.

(Photo by Conny Schneider on Unsplash)

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Google-owned DeepMind was quietly given the personal records of 1.6 million patients at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.

DeepMind said that it was using the data to create a potentially life-saving app called Streams. The app was designed to alert, diagnose, and detect when patients were at risk of developing acute kidney injury. It’s currently in the process of being decommissioned.

Several investigations were launched, including by the Information Commission that said in 2017 the hospital had not done enough to protect the privacy of patients when it shared data with Google.

Following that ruling, DeepMind apologised and said that it should have been thinking about the needs of patients rather than on building tools for clinicians.

The new case is being handled by law firm Mishcon de Reya on behalf of the lead plaintiff Andrew Prismall and the over 1.5 million other affected patients.

Mr Prismall said: “Given the very positive experience of the NHS that I have always had during my various treatments, I was greatly concerned to find that a tech giant had ended up with my confidential medical records.

“As a patient having any sort of medical treatment, the last thing you would expect is your private medical records to be in the hands of one of the world’s biggest technology companies.

“I hope that this case will help achieve a fair outcome and closure for all of the patients whose confidential records were obtained in this instance without their knowledge or consent.”

In the UK, such cases are “opt-out” which means all impacted parties will be included in the action unless they specifically request not to be. Given the size of the action, the overall payout for DeepMind could be large but small for each individual.

The case is just one of a growing number of high-profile cases around data collection in recent years. In April, Anne Longfield, the former Children’s Commissioner for England, filed a case against TikTok on behalf of millions of UK children over how the app collected and used their data.

Data collection is vital for training AIs that could very well save lives. However, individual privacy is also important.

Mishcon Partner Ben Lasserson, who is leading the DeepMind case, said: “This important claim should help to answer fundamental questions about the handling of sensitive personal data and special category data.

“It comes at a time of heightened public interest and understandable concern over who has access to people’s personal data and medical records and how this access is managed.”

As the UK leaves the EU it is looking to change its data laws. While the EU’s laws have often been criticised as being too strict and leaving innovation to happen outside of Europe, there are concerns that the UK could become too relaxed despite ministers’ pledges not to.

“There’s an opportunity for us to set world-leading, gold standard data regulation which protects privacy, but does so in as light-touch a way as possible,” said Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden.

Britain’s data watchdog is also getting a shakeup and will be led by John Edwards, New Zealand’s current privacy commissioner.

“There is a great opportunity to build on the wonderful work already done and I look forward to the challenge of steering the organisation and the British economy into a position of international leadership in the safe and trusted use of data for the benefit of all,” commented Edwards.

Only time will tell if the UK manages to strike a balance between the strictness of the EU and the somewhat laissez-faire approach taken by many of the world’s powers. However, the cases against DeepMind and others show that a modernisation of laws and thinking is needed to unlock the potential of AI to improve/save lives while protecting individual privacy.

(Photo by Tugce Gungormezler on Unsplash)

Find out more about Digital Transformation Week North America, taking place on 9-10 November 2021, a virtual event and conference exploring advanced DTX strategies for a ‘digital everything’ world.

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