Advocacy coalition EyesOnOpenAI is asking Attorney General Rob Bonta to investigate a recent contract between OpenAI and semiconductor company Cerebras Systems that the group says bolsters its earlier arguments that OpenAI has abandoned its philanthropic mission.<\/p>\n
EyesOnOpenAI, a coalition of AI-skeptical groups<\/a>, started calling on Bonta last year to investigate OpenAI after the company restructured last fall from a nonprofit to a public benefit corporation. This time, the group pointed to a recent agreement between Cerebras and OpenAI entered into, for the AI behemoth to purchase computing infrastructure and hardware from Cerebras, as evidence of senior OpenAI leadership\u2019s \u201cself-dealing\u201d and trying to shirk its duty to protect its charitable assets.<\/p>\n OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Director Adam D\u2019Angelo, Chief Executive Sam Altman and co-founder Ilya Sutskever are listed as investors<\/a> on Cerebras\u2019 website, which EyesOnOpenAI says boosts its argument that the company allows its executives to shirk their duty to disclose their ties to companies with which OpenAI does business.<\/p>\n EyesOnOpenAI called their ties to Cerebras, which were disclosed in a recent petition to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for Cerebras to go public, \u201cevidence of self-dealing\u201d in a letter the group sent to Bonta\u2019s office Tuesday.<\/p>\n \u201cBy all indications, (Altman, D\u2019Angelo, Brockman and Sutskever\u2019s) equity holdings in Cerebras constitute material interests in the counterparty to the transaction which not only trigger OpenAI\u2019s policy (to disclose financial ties), but also the procedures set forth in (California) Corporations Code section 5233 to approve a self-dealing transaction,\u201d the letter read.<\/p>\n OpenAI first launched as a nonprofit in 2015 in San Francisco. Since then, it has grown to become one of the wealthiest companies in the world and its founders and executives have promised to use its resources to fund cures for Alzheimer\u2019s<\/a> and other public benefits.<\/p>\n Bonta\u2019s office and Cerebras did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.<\/p>\n \u201cAll relevant interests were disclosed and reviewed through OpenAI\u2019s established conflicts review process prior to approval of the transaction,\u201d OpenAI spokesperson Jamie Radice said in an email.<\/p>\n Legislators have also begun scrutinizing OpenAI<\/a> for its ChatGPT model\u2019s interactions with underage children and the role it may have played in encouraging teenagers to commit suicide, some of whose parents are now suing OpenAI.<\/p>\n OpenAI and Altman recently triumphed over Elon Musk, the Tesla executive who was an early investor in OpenAI until 2018. A jury tossed Musk\u2019s lawsuit last week, deciding that he had waited too long to file a lawsuit claiming that OpenAI had deceived him by accepting his money and then reneging on its original nonprofit mission.<\/p>\n Catherine Bracey, the chief executive of EyesOnOpenAI group member Tech Equity, pointed out that the jury did not deliberate over the substance of the allegations Musk raised. That left whether OpenAI was violating its agreement to uphold its nonprofit mission a \u201cglaring open-ended question,\u201d she said in an interview.<\/p>\n The lawsuit\u2019s collapse will now allow OpenAI a smoother pathway to an initial public offering<\/a>. Musk\u2019s rival SpaceX company is also expected to go public soon.<\/p>\n