Altman Joins AI Signature for Humanity... Was Musk's Lawsuit on His Mind?

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and other executives from major technology companies have signed an open letter calling for responsible development of artificial intelligence (AI), Bloomberg reported on the 4th (local time).

The letter was initiated by venture capitalist Ron Conway and his company SV Angel, known as the "Midas touch" of Silicon Valley. It emphasizes collective responsibility to maximize the benefits of AI for humanity while mitigating its risks.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, who sparked the generative artificial intelligence (AI) boom with ChatGPT, is speaking at the 'K-Startup Meet Open AI' held on the 9th at 63 Square in Yeouido, Seoul. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

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CEO Altman posted on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), saying, "I am very pleased with the spirit of this letter," and added, "AI advancement will be one of the biggest factors in improving people's quality of life."

In addition to CEO Altman, dozens of startups and technology companies including Hugging Face and Scale AI have joined the initiative.

Since OpenAI released the generative AI ChatGPT, warnings about the risks of AI have been emerging in various places. In May, major AI company executives including CEO Altman signed a letter warning that AI could lead to human extinction.

SV Angel stated in the letter that the impact of AI is comparable to innovations such as the printing press, the combustion engine, electricity, and the internet. It argued that the balance between AI’s positive and negative effects on humans will be shaped by human actions, and that it is a shared responsibility to make choices that maximize AI’s benefits and mitigate risks for current and future generations. Bloomberg pointed out that the letter lacks specific implementation plans.

Meanwhile, this signing came after Tesla CEO Elon Musk filed a lawsuit on the 29th of last month demanding that CEO Altman and OpenAI release AI technology as open source. In the lawsuit, Musk accused OpenAI of violating its founding mission to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI) for the benefit of all humanity and effectively becoming a subsidiary of Microsoft (MS).

Jason Kwon, OpenAI’s Chief Strategy Officer (CSO), stated in an internal memo, "This lawsuit claim may stem from Musk’s regret over not being involved with the company (OpenAI) currently," and asserted, "OpenAI is not a subsidiary of MS. It is independent and directly competes with MS."

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