00:00Let's start with the legal claims in the case. I mean, technically speaking, what is it that
00:05Elon Musk is suing for and based on what and hoping to achieve what?
00:12Yeah. So at this point, there are only two claims that remain. A lot of others have been dropped
00:17or dismissed. And so the first is that Altman and OpenAI violated a promise to Musk that OpenAI
00:25would have a permanent charitable mission to develop safe open source AI technology for the
00:31public good and not private gain. And this was violated when in 2019, OpenAI created a for-profit
00:39affiliate. So that's the first allegation. And the second is that, and it's related, is that Altman
00:46and OpenAI received undeserved benefits such as Musk's investment because of these broken promises.
00:55Professor Lund, does it matter that this is a jury trial?
01:00You know, this is a jury trial, yes. But the jury in this case is only being used as an
01:06advisory
01:06to Judge Gonzalez Rogers. So she actually doesn't have to follow their opinion,
01:11although it will certainly give her some cover if she does. And so today, you know,
01:16we're starting jury selection and it's a really interesting process. And the law here, you know,
01:23it doesn't require that jurors have never heard of Elon Musk or they've never used OpenAI.
01:28But instead, you know, the goal will be to find people that can put aside what they've heard,
01:33what they know about these people, and to decide the case only on the evidence presented in court.
01:40But, you know, these are two very infamous figures, right? Musk and Altman. Musk has been aggressively
01:46moving companies to Texas and out of California, has been leaning hard into mega politics.
01:52Altman isn't as well known, but he's had some recent episodes suggesting he faces some real
01:57personality challenges as well. You know, the recent Molotov cocktail attack on his house.
02:03And, you know, I think in general, there's just growing unease and skepticism about whether
02:07AI is going to visit its dystopian future on all of us, unemployment, data center, environmental effects,
02:16power consumption. So, you know, I think here it's going to be the jury's views may be colored on
02:22these specific views on each of these individuals and also AI generally.
02:28Well, Mr. Altman is well known to regular viewers of this program. But just in case he's the CEO of
02:35OpenAI, which is regarded probably as the most consequential AI lab at this moment in time.
02:41But therein lies an interesting point. Elon Musk is also at the helm of XAI, which is now owned by
02:48SpaceX, a company of which he is CEO. Does that matter going into the case that he leads a rival
02:56company to the one that Sam Altman now leads? Absolutely. I mean, you know, it's very easy to view
03:03this suit cynically because Musk is operating his own rival AI company and he's tried to partner with
03:11or take over OpenAI multiple times. He's been spurned. So I think absolutely there's a reason to be
03:19suspect about his motives here. And even the judge in this case has called this out, you know, in some
03:25pre-trial motions. You can, in fact, see in his IPO letter for SpaceX that, you know, they disclose
03:33that Grok is going to benefit if this suit is successful. So I think at the end of the day,
03:39the judge and jury are going to have to determine whether Musk is disingenuously using this lawsuit
03:44to kneecap OpenAI and create more room for his own for-profit initiatives to thrive with less
03:51competition. And this is essentially what OpenAI is, you know, pointing to in this litigation.
03:58Dorothy, we just have two minutes left here, but the central issue is the non-profit origin of OpenAI.
04:07And within the world of AI, of course, we have public benefit corporation structures as well. Is there a chance
04:13that this case sets precedent for the legal structure of companies that operate that way?
04:21Yeah. So, I mean, you know, there's a lot to say about this structure. You know, one of the arguments
04:26that Musk has made is that, you know, if we're not careful here, this is going to cause other
04:34non-profits to follow the same path as OpenAI. They're going to, you know, make promises and then fall
04:41behind on them. And we're going to see other non-profits kind of going this way. You know, I think
04:46this is ultimately a weak argument. For one, OpenAI is not your typical startup, right? This is a very unique
04:53company and business. It's had a very unique sort of governance history. Each of its iterations has looked
05:00really different in interesting ways that we could spend far more than two minutes on. And, you know, the other
05:05thing I think is important to note in this conversation is that something that's true of corporate law is that
05:11it's enabling. It allows businesses to change their forms based on their unique business needs,
05:18right? And so, you know, over time, you know, the argument that OpenAI has made is that we started off
05:25as a non-profit, but this is a really capital-intensive business. And we just needed more money in order
05:30to
05:30continue to pursue our mission and develop this technology. And this is why we made these changes.
05:37And this is all sort of consistent with our initial goals and the promises that were made up front.
05:43And so, again, I think that this is something you would expect from organizations, that they change their
05:49business form over time, and you wouldn't necessarily want to deter that either.
Comments