OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has a vision for open-source AI, and it’s not far from what the company’s former cofounder, Elon Musk, has been asking for.
On Thursday, Altman wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post outlining a four-point plan to fortify US AI dominance by implementing safeguards, building infrastructure, regulating AI-related exports, and forging a global community.
But what’s notable in Altman’s proposal was how he highlighted the role open-source AI models could have in strengthening America’s hold on the field.
“Making sure open-sourced models are readily available to developers in those nations will further bolster our advantage,” Altman wrote. “The challenge of who will lead on AI is not just about exporting technology, it’s about exporting the values that the technology upholds.”
Musk has repeatedly criticized Altman’s leadership since he left the ChatGPT maker’s board in 2018. Musk has been pummeling Altman based on his stance that OpenAI’s systems aren’t as open as they should, ideally, be.
“OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it ‘Open’ AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft,” Musk wrote in an X post in February 2023.
“Not what I intended at all,” he added,
Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in February this year, where he accused the company of violating its nonprofit mission by partnering with Microsoft. He later withdrew his lawsuit in June.
To be sure, Musk also has some reservations about how open AI models should be. In private correspondence, the Tesla and xAI chief appeared to agree with OpenAI’s then-chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, that there should be limits to openness.
“As we get closer to building AI, it will make sense to start being less open,” Sutskever said in an email to Musk in January 2016.
“The Open in OpenAI means that everyone should benefit from the fruits of AI after its built, but it’s totally OK to not share the science (even though sharing everything is definitely the right strategy in the short and possibly medium term for recruitment purposes),” Sutskever continued.
“Yup,” Musk replied.
Representatives for Altman and Musk didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.
Altman’s position on open-source AI might also be less of a mea culpa to Musk, as it is a recognition that it could be where the industry is headed.
On Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled his company’s latest AI model, Llama 3.1.
The model, which Meta says can outperform OpenAI’s GPT-4o, is open source and has been made available for the public to use for free.
“I believe that open source is necessary for a positive AI future,” Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post on the same day.
“There is an ongoing debate about the safety of open source AI models, and my view is that open source AI will be safer than the alternatives. I think governments will conclude it’s in their interest to support open source because it will make the world more prosperous and safer,” Zuckerberg wrote.
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