A gaggle of ex-OpenAI workers on Friday filed a proposed amicus transient in help of Elon Musk in his lawsuit towards OpenAI, opposing OpenAI’s deliberate conversion from a nonprofit to a for-profit company.
The transient, filed by Harvard legislation professor and Inventive Commons founder Lawrence Lessig, names 12 former OpenAI workers: Steven Adler, Rosemary Campbell, Neil Chowdhury, Jacob Hilton, Daniel Kokotajlo, Gretchen Krueger, Todor Markov, Richard Ngo, Girish Sastry, William Saunders, Carrol Wainwright, and Jeffrey Wu. It makes the case that, if OpenAI’s non-profit ceded management of the group’s enterprise operations, it could “basically violate its mission.”
A number of of the ex-staffers have spoken out towards OpenAI’s practices publicly earlier than. Krueger has known as on the corporate to enhance its accountability and transparency, whereas Kokotajlo and Saunders beforehand warned that OpenAI is in a “reckless” race for AI dominance. Wainwright has stated that OpenAI “mustn’t [be trusted] when it guarantees to do the appropriate factor later.”
In a press release, an OpenAI spokesperson stated that OpenAI’s nonprofit “isn’t going anyplace” and that the group’s mission “will stay the identical.”
“Our board has been very clear,” the spokesperson informed TechCrunch through e-mail. “We’re turning our current for-profit arm right into a public profit company (PBC) — the identical construction as different AI labs like Anthropic — the place a few of these former workers now work — and [Musk’s AI startup] xAI.”
OpenAI was based as a nonprofit in 2015, but it surely transformed to a “capped-profit” in 2019, and is now attempting to restructure as soon as extra right into a PBC. When it transitioned to a capped-profit, OpenAI retained its nonprofit wing, which presently has a controlling stake within the group’s company arm.
Musk’s swimsuit towards OpenAI accuses the startup of abandoning its nonprofit mission, which aimed to make sure its AI analysis advantages all humanity. Musk had sought a preliminary injunction to halt OpenAI’s conversion. A federal decide denied the request, however permitted the case to go to a jury trial in spring 2026.
Based on the ex-OpenAI workers’ transient, OpenAI’s current construction — a nonprofit controlling a gaggle of different subsidiaries — is a “essential half” of its total technique and “essential” to the group’s mission. Restructuring that removes the nonprofit’s controlling position wouldn’t solely contradict OpenAI’s mission and constitution commitments, however would additionally “breach the belief of workers, donors, and different stakeholders who joined and supported the group primarily based on these commitments,” asserts the transient.
“OpenAI dedicated to a number of key rules for executing on [its] mission of their constitution doc,” the transient reads. “These commitments had been taken extraordinarily severely throughout the firm and had been repeatedly communicated and handled internally as being binding. The court docket ought to acknowledge that sustaining the nonprofit’s governance is important to preserving OpenAI’s distinctive construction, which was designed to make sure that synthetic common intelligence advantages humanity moderately than serving slim monetary pursuits.”
Synthetic common intelligence, or AGI, is broadly understood to imply AI that may full any process a human can.
Based on the transient, OpenAI usually used its construction as a recruitment device — and repeatedly assured workers that the nonprofit management was “essential” in executing its mission. The transient recounts an OpenAI all-hands assembly towards the tip of 2020 throughout which OpenAI CEO Sam Altman allegedly burdened that the nonprofits’ governance and oversight had been “paramount” in “guaranteeing that security and broad societal advantages had been prioritized over short-term monetary beneficial properties.”
“In recruiting conversations with candidates, it was widespread to quote OpenAI’s distinctive governance construction as a essential differentiating issue between OpenAI and rivals akin to Google or Anthropic and an necessary purpose they need to think about becoming a member of the corporate,” reads the transient. “This identical purpose was additionally usually used to influence workers who had been contemplating leaving for rivals to remain at OpenAI — together with a few of us.”
The transient warns that, ought to OpenAI be allowed to transform to a for-profit, it could be incentivized to “[cut] corners” on security work and develop highly effective AI “concentrated amongst its shareholders.” A for-profit OpenAI would have little purpose to abide by the “merge and help” clause in OpenAI’s present constitution, which pledges that OpenAI will cease competing with and help any “value-aligned, safety-conscious” venture that achieves AGI earlier than it does, asserts the transient.
The ex-OpenAI workers, a few of whom had been analysis and coverage leaders on the firm, be part of a rising cohort voicing robust opposition to OpenAI’s transition.
Earlier this week, a gaggle of organizations, together with nonprofits and labor teams just like the California Teamsters, petitioned California Lawyer Basic Rob Bonta to cease OpenAI from turning into a for-profit. They claimed the corporate has “failed to guard its charitable property” and is actively “subverting its charitable mission to advance protected synthetic intelligence.”
Encode, a nonprofit group that co-sponsored California’s ill-fated SB 1047 AI security laws, cited comparable issues in an amicus transient filed in December.
OpenAI has stated that its conversion would protect its nonprofit arm and infuse it with sources to be spent on “charitable initiatives” in sectors akin to healthcare, schooling, and science. In change for its controlling stake in OpenAI’s enterprise, the nonprofit would reportedly stand to reap billions of {dollars}.
“We’re truly on the brink of construct the best-equipped nonprofit the world has ever seen — we’re not changing it away,” the corporate wrote in a sequence of posts on X on Wednesday.
The stakes are excessive for OpenAI, which wants to finish its for-profit conversion by the tip of this yr or subsequent or threat relinquishing a number of the capital it has raised in current months, in accordance with stories.
