Little Rock Most of us would know better than to let it all hang out in a courtroom trial, but that’s because we’re not filthy rich with only our egos larger than our bank balances. Given that we’re all in the cheap seats looking from afar, we’re now being treated to such a spectacle unfurling in an Oakland, California venue between Elon Musk, on many days the richest person in the world, owner of SpaceX, X-Twitter, Tesla, and other outfits, and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and other ventures. This is a battle of the billionaires. Huge elephants fighting on the savannah of Silicon Valley, ostensibly over the future of artificial intelligence, but more likely about the classic concerns of money and prestige.
There are problems for most of us in following this fight, because there are no good guys involved. We have a dog in this race, but no one to root for.
Musk has proven himself over and over again to be highly conservative, a likely racist, the heartless hatchet man behind DOGE before falling in and out and in love with Trump again, and more. The list of his disappointing escapades is endless. People driving his cars in California wear bumper stickers on their Tesla’s saying “love the car, hate the man.” One of the only reasons to support his advocacy of a voyage to Mars, is our hope that he would personally move there.
Altman is no better in many ways, just not as rich and with less of a track record, largely in sales and promotions, rather than engineering. One profile after another has established that he is a shapeshifting chameleon who you couldn’t trust to walk your dog, much less to assure that artificial intelligence is safe, secure, and in good hands.
In short, truth and the common good are rare guests and unwelcome strangers to both of these guys. The only sympathy might be shown to the judge who has to handle this mess.
The issue revolves around Musk putting up millions to co-found OpenAI as a nonprofit originally to “keep AI safe” with Altman, and leaving later to mind his own fences, but becoming estranged from Altman, his partners, and Microsoft, an early investor, once it started transitioning from a nonprofit to a for profit and with the introduction of ChatGPT, a huge hit, soaring the outfit as a leader in AI development to an $800-billion valuation. He is suing for $100-billion or more claiming he was ripped off in a bait-and-switch by Altman, while Altman is claiming his real issue is that he couldn’t control OpenAI and is now trying to slow its progress as a competitor.
Musk and his lawyers make arguments on the order of this is stealing from a charity, and it’s like the “museum store trying to take over the museum.” He’s not wrong necessarily. Altman and his gang in moving to a for profit have been forced to guarantee that the original nonprofit could sometimes become one of the world’s richest, if the for profit OpenAI holds its astronomical value. From the looks of it, no one’s hands are clean. This is about greed, power, and money. A pox on both of their houses!
The only good reason for following this dispute is the hope that everyone will realize that neither of these dudes should be in a position of protecting the potential and pitfalls of artificial intelligence. Politicians and the public viewing all of this in horror might finally be able to realize that we have to have better, less self-interested stewards for a tool that might have dual capacities for great good and evil. The judge should award each of them a dollar, make them shake hands, and get over themselves and demand artificial intelligence be put in different and better hands.