Elon Musk warns of ‘apocalyptic' AI risks in OpenAI trial

Elon Musk testified in a high-stakes trial against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, for seven hours on the witness stand.

The testimony ranged from claims of betrayal to apocalyptic warnings about artificial intelligence (AI).

The plaintiff of the case, Musk, the cofounder of OpenAI since 2015, claims that the developer has betrayed its non-profit charitable principles. During the testimony, Musk frequently used the word “charity,” which is not used in the company’s founding blog post.

Musk testified: “I gave them 38 million essentially free funding, which they then used to create an 800 billion for-profit company.”

“I was literally a fool,” he added.

The SpaceX CEO further stated that enabling OpenAI to continue as a for-profit can undermine charitable businesses nationwide.

“If we make it okay to loot a charity, the entire foundation of charitable giving in America will be destroyed,” he added.

According to Musk, he had hired Sutskever, the renowned researcher from Google. The computing resources used were through his relationship with the CEOs at Microsoft and Nvidia. Apparently, he did not talk to Musk anymore after Musk hired Sutskever away from him.

When the judge asked him why to wait until 2024 to sue the company, Musk answered that he only realised the scope of the shift when Microsoft announced a $10 billion investment in 2022.

“I texted Sam Altman and said, ' What the hell is going on?” Musk recalled. “This is a bait and switch.”

Throughout the testimony, he kept on making stark warnings about AI, stating that “we all could die.”

He also makes frequent comparisons to “The Terminator,” explaining,” it could also kill all of us…. the Terminator outcome.”

However, Musk expressed his preference for an alternative reality in which people live happily ever after, stating, "I think we want to be in a movie … like Star Trek, not a James Cameron movie."

Additionally, during his testimony, Elon Musk made a shocking revelation about a conversation he had had with one of Google's founders, Larry Page. When he asked Larry, "What if AI wipes out all humans?" He later replied that it would "be fine so long as artificial intelligence survives," adding that Musk was being a "speciesist" for showing more concern for humans than for machines.