California Should Require OpenAI To Pay Back Nonprofit Sector, Secure Public Rights to ‘Artificial General Intelligence’ Technology

September 25, 2024

California Should Require OpenAI To Pay Back Nonprofit Sector, Secure Public Rights to 'Artificial General Intelligence' Technology

Washington, D.C. - Today, Reuters reportedthat 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,hereandhere.

"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."