{"id":30507,"date":"2026-05-07T04:29:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T04:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/30507\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T04:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T04:29:09","slug":"worries-about-ais-risks-to-humanity-loom-over-elon-musks-trial-against-openai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/30507\/","title":{"rendered":"Worries about AI’s risks to humanity loom over Elon Musk’s trial against OpenAI"},"content":{"rendered":"

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) \u2014 At the heart of the trial<\/a> pitting Elon Musk against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is a moment when they found common cause on an ever more pressing question: how to protect humanity from the risks of artificial intelligence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It turned sour, and the jury is charged with settling the ensuing legal dispute between the two Silicon Valley titans.<\/p>\n

But the unresolved questions about the dangers of AI have been looming over the federal courthouse in Oakland, California, since the trial began last week. The technology itself is not on trial \u2013 the judge has warned lawyers not to get \u201csidetracked\u201d by questions about its dangers \u2013 but witness testimony has touched on concerns around workforce disruptions and the prospect raised by Musk that superhuman AI might one day kill us all.<\/p>\n

Musk, the world\u2019s richest person, filed the case accusing his fellow OpenAI<\/a> co-founder of betraying promises to keep the company as a nonprofit. Altman<\/a>, in turn, accuses Musk of trying to hobble the ChatGPT maker for the benefit of his own AI company.<\/p>\n

One witness, AI pioneer Stuart Russell, said that the \u201cwinner take all\u201d power struggle over AI\u2019s future is itself threatening humanity.<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s lawyers brought Russell to the stand as an expert witness, at the rate of $5,000 an hour. The University of California, Berkeley computer scientist listed a host of AI dangers, from racial and gender discrimination to jobs displacement, misinformation and emotional attachments that take some AI chatbot users<\/a> down a spiral of psychosis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhichever company develops AGI first would have a very big advantage\u201d and an increasingly big lead over everyone else, Russell told the court, using the initials for artificial general intelligence<\/a>, a term for advanced AI technology that surpasses humans at many tasks.<\/p>\n

A judge\u2019s warning hasn\u2019t kept out talk of AI\u2019s dangers<\/p>\n

The trial centers on the 2015 birth of OpenAI as a nonprofit startup primarily funded by Musk. <\/p>\n

Both Musk and Altman, who has not yet testified in the trial, have said they wanted OpenAI to safely develop AGI for the benefit of humanity and not for any one person\u2019s gain or under any one person\u2019s control. And both camps allege it\u2019s the other guy who was trying to control it. <\/p>\n

A jury of nine people selected from the San Francisco Bay Area will get to say which one of them is telling the truth. <\/p>\n

Early on, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers warned lawyers, particularly Musk\u2019s, not to delve into broader AI concerns that go beyond Musk\u2019s claims that OpenAI violated its charitable mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a trial on the safety risks of artificial intelligence. This is not a trial on whether or not AI has damaged humanity,\u201d Gonzalez Rogers told lawyers before jurors arrived at the federal courthouse.<\/p>\n

Still, Musk managed to skirt that guidance in his testimony last week. Asked to describe artificial general intelligence, Musk said it is when AI becomes \u201cas smart as any human,\u201d and added that \u201cwe are getting close to that point,\u201d and AI will be smarter than any human as soon as next year.<\/p>\n

Musk said he has \u201cextreme concerns\u201d about AI and has had them for a long time. Musk said he wanted a \u201ccounterpoint\u201d to Google, which at the time had \u201call the money, all the computers and all the talent\u201d for AI, with no counterbalance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was concerned AI would be a double-edged sword,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Musk and OpenAI each say they are working for humanity\u2019s benefit <\/p>\n

During his testimony, Musk repeatedly said that he could have founded OpenAI as a for-profit company, just like the other companies he started or took over. \u201cI deliberately chose this,\u201d he said, \u201cfor the public good.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge expressed some skepticism. In comments to lawyers last week before the jury came into the room, Gonzalez Rogers pointed out that Musk, \u201cdespite these risks, is creating a company that is in the exact same space,\u201d referring to the billionaire\u2019s xAI artificial intelligence company, which launched in 2023 and has since merged with Musk\u2019s rocket company SpaceX.<\/p>\n

OpenAI\u2019s side also claims its goals are to benefit the public. OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman<\/a>, a defendant in Musk\u2019s lawsuit along with Altman and their company, said he thought the technology OpenAI was developing was \u201ctransformative\u201d \u2014 bigger than corporations, corporate structures and bigger than any one individual. It was, he said, \u201cabout humanity as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brockman testified this week that his No. 1 goal was always the \u201cmission\u201d of OpenAI and it was Musk who sought unilateral control over the company. <\/p>\n

Brockman recalled a meeting where at first Musk seemed open to the idea of Altman being OpenAI\u2019s CEO. In the end, however, \u201che said people needed to know he was in charge.\u201d <\/p>\n

In addition to damages, Musk is seeking Altman\u2019s ouster from OpenAI\u2019s board. If Musk wins, it could derail OpenAI\u2019s plans for an initial public offering of its shares. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) \u2014 At the heart of the trial pitting Elon Musk against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6744,1483,3013,25,309,970,140,1151,1478,2140,829,2680,370,16217,134,11580,10138],"class_list":{"0":"post-30507","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-agi","8":"tag-agi","9":"tag-alphabet","10":"tag-artificial-general-intelligence","11":"tag-artificial-intelligence","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-california","14":"tag-elon-musk","15":"tag-finance","16":"tag-finance-business","17":"tag-greg-brockman","18":"tag-inc","19":"tag-openai-inc","20":"tag-sam-altman","21":"tag-stuart-russell","22":"tag-technology","23":"tag-trials","24":"tag-yvonne-gonzalez-rogers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}