WIRED: The Real Losers of the Musk v. Altman Trial -- A federal jury is now deciding whether Elon Musk will win his

[ancianita]

lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman—but the trial has made everyone look bad.

"ATTORNEYS DELIVERED CLOSING arguments in the Musk v Altman trial on Thursday in a final attempt to convince a judge and jury that their respective clients, Elon Musk and Sam Altman, are the most well-intentioned, truth-telling stewards of OpenAI’s founding nonprofit mission. A judgement could be delivered as soon as next week, ending a decade-long battle between two of the technology industry’s most influential entrepreneurs.

But regardless of the outcome, there is a wide set of losers in this case. Based on ample amounts of evidence, it appears that the people worst off are the employees, policymakers, and members of the public who believed in the mission of a nonprofit research lab—and supported OpenAI because of it. What seemed to take precedence for Musk and OpenAI’s other cofounders at almost every turn was building the world’s leading AI lab—even if that meant creating a multibillion-dollar for-profit company in the process.

“It's hard to see how the public interest is being protected by either of these parties, and that is really what is ultimately at stake in a case about a nonprofit,” says Jill Horwitz, a Northwestern University law professor with expertise in nonprofits and innovation, who listened to the closing arguments. “The public interest in the nonprofit is at risk no matter who wins.”
OpenAI's stated mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits humanity, but humanity is not a party in this case. In practice, OpenAI has spent the last decade attempting to rival multitrillion-dollar companies like Google and build AGI first. Additionally, Musk and Altman have fought tooth and nail to be the ones who control OpenAI...

Musk has accused Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, and Greg Brockman, its cofounder and president, of straying from the nonprofit’s founding mission. He claims the founders used his $38 million investment to turn OpenAI into an $850 billion company and make several of its cofounders billionaires. To win this case, Musk has to convince a jury and judge that he attached certain conditions to his investment, specifically that OpenAI could only use the money for a charitable purpose, and that he filed the case in a timely manner. In response, OpenAI has argued that Musk has failed to prove either of these accusations, and that he simply has sour grapes about losing control of the AI lab...."

More context and trial details at

https://www.wired.com/story/musk-v-altman-trial-closing-arguments/

non-paywall https://archive.ph/DsVRM

More info and links on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musk_v._Altman