Geoffrey Hinton, widely regarded as the ‘Godfather of AI’, has voiced his concerns about ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s move to a for-profit structure. Hinton has signed an open letter to the Attorneys General of California and Delaware to stop OpenAI’s proposed restructuring. Besides Hinton, the letter has more than 30 signatories, including a number of former OpenAI employees and experts in the field.
In a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), Hilton criticised Openai’s for-profit push, writing, “I like Openai’s mission of ‘ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity’, and I’d like to stop them from completely gutting it. I’ve signed on to a new letter to @AGRobBonta & @DE_DOJ asking them to halt the restructuring”
“AGI is the most important and potentially dangerous technology of our time. OpenAI was right that this technology merits strong structures and incentives to ensure it is developed safely, and is wrong now in attempting to change these structures and incentives. We’re urging the AGs to protect the public and stop this.” Hinton added.
In December last year, OpenAI announced its plans to take away the overriding control of its non-profit arm entity while giving it shares in a new for-profit entity. The company at the time said it needed more capital to compete in the AI race.
The Sam Altman-led startup needs to complete its restructuring effort by the end of this year in order to secure the full $40 billion in funding from Japan’s SoftBank. However, to complete the shift to a for-profit structure, OpenAI requires approval from California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
OpenAI’s restructuring challenges:
Prior to the open letter, 12 OpenAI employees had also joined Elon Musk’s lawsuit against the company, claiming that it had abandoned its non-profit roots and betrayed the mission that originally attracted them to the AI startup.
Meanwhile, OpenAI responded by saying that its non-profit structure isn’t going away completely and that the new structure it is employing would be akin to that of other companies like Anthropic.
“Our board has been very clear: Our nonprofit isn’t going anywhere, and our mission will remain the same. We’re turning our existing for-profit arm into a public benefit corporation—the same structure as other AI labs like Anthropic—where some of these former employees now work—and xAI.” OpenAI had said in a blogpost.
While OpenAI has often faced criticism from Elon Musk over its closeness to Microsoft and the change in its non-profit structure, it has often dismissed these allegations as coming from jealous rival who has an axe to grind. However, the new open letter by experts and former OpenAI employees has now given more credence to the concerns about OpenAI’s for profit shift, especially given that ChatGPT still remains the most popular AI chatbot in the world.