California Should Require OpenAI To Pay Back Nonprofit Sector, Secure Public Rights to ‘Artificial General Intelligence’ Technology
Washington, D.C. — Today, Reuters reported that OpenAI is planning to restructure its core business into a for-profit corporation.
Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, responded to the news:
“If OpenAI wants to convert itself into a for-profit operation, then under California law it will be required to pay into the nonprofit sector — for example, by endowing a new, independent foundation for AI safety — the value of what it is taking out. Given that the nonprofit OpenAI currently has controlling authority over the for-profit OpenAI, this amount should probably total in the tens of billions of dollars.
“Public Citizen has made this argument to California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a series of letters, here, here and here.
“In addition to securing the interest of the nonprofit sector, California AG Bonta should insist that an OpenAI conversion to for-profit status reserve for humanity the right to any OpenAI invention of ‘artificial general intelligence’ — which OpenAI defines as ‘highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work.’ Devotion of AGI to humanity’s interest was built into the original plan for OpenAI, and a for-profit OpenAI should not now be able to privatize such new technologies, if they in fact are developed.”