Elon Musk has spent a lot of time attacking popular chatbot ChatGPT and its maker, OpenAI, for being “woke” and deviating from OpenAI’s original non-profit mission.
But during an interview on Thursday, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, defended his organization against Musk’s voluble criticism.
"I mean, he's a jerk, whatever else you want to say about him—he has a style that is not a style that I'd want to have for myself," Altman said on the “On With Kara Swisher” podcast.
Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and eventually left its board in 2018, saying that his work with the group conflicted with Tesla’s expansion into artificial intelligence. But it turns out that the world’s richest man had reportedly offered to lead OpenAI, and when he was turned down, he walked away from the company, according to news site Semafor. That’s when the ties between Musk and OpenAI ended formally. But after ChatGPT gained millions of users following its debut several months ago, Musk was "furious" and went on the offensive.
In February, Musk tweeted about his disagreements with changes to OpenAI’s status as a pure non-profit to one that also has a for-profit arm and has a big investor in Microsoft.
“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. Not what I intended at all,” he wrote.
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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2023
Not what I intended at all.
