The organization has submitted a brief to the US District Court for the Northern District of California, stating that OpenAI’s conversion to a for-profit wound “undermine” the company’s mission to develop technology in a safe and beneficial to the public way.
The brief mentions that the public has an interest in having technology such as AI which could be society-transforming controlled by a public charity legally bound to prioritize safety and the public benefit, and not by an organization focused on generating profit.
Sneha Revanur, Encode’s founder and president, accused the company that it is planning to internalize the profits but externalize the consequences to all of humanity”.
Encode’s brief was supported by Geoffrey Hinton, a 2024 Nobel Laureate and a pioneer in the AI field, and also Stuart Russel, a UC Berkeley computer science professor and director at the Center for Human-Compatible AI.
Hinton said that OpenAI was founded as a safety-focused non-profit, made a lot of safety-related promises, and received numerous tax and other benefits thanks to being a non-profit.
OpenAI started back in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab. It’s taken investments from companies including Microsoft. Today, OpenAI has a hybrid structure with a for-profit side controlled by a non-profit and is planning to transition its for-profit into a Delaware Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) which has shares of stock.
OpenAI’s non-profit would remain but will cede control in exchange for shares in the PBC.
Back in November, Musk requested an injunction to halt the proposed change, accusing OpenAI of abandoning its philanthropic mission. Meta also supported efforts to block OpenAI’s conversion.
I can understand the position and concerns of people opposing OpenAI’s conversion. Still, it doesn’t escape me that Meta and X are themselves for-profits and also have rival generative AI and therefore, interests in the AI field. We will have to wait and see what happens in this conflict.
