OpenAI could would have give Microsoft access to its still untapped artificial general intelligence (AGI).
As it stands, the artificial intelligence (AI) startup has a provision that prevents Microsoft from accessing OpenAI’s AGI, or AI that can think and perform tasks at or above the level of humans.
HoweverOpenAI plans to remove this rule from its corporate structure, allowing Microsoft – its biggest benefactor – to continue investing in and accessing OpenAI technology once AGI is reached.the Financial Times (FT) reported Friday, December 6, citing sources close to the matter.
According to the report, OpenAI initially added a provision to protect AGI from misuse for commercial purposes, effectively giving ownership of the technology to its nonprofit board of directors.
“AGI is explicitly excluded from all commercial and IP licensing agreements,” the company’s website states.
However, the FT said, this clause could limit the value of OpenAI’s partnership with Microsoft, which has invested more than 13 billion dollars in startup. The company will need more funding as it competes with much wealthier rivals in the AI race, such as Amazon and Google.
OpenAI – recently valued at $150 billion – started as a non-profit research laboratory, but is now restructuring into a public benefit corporation. Source told the FT that, as part of the changes, the company was discussing new terms with Microsoft and other investors.
“When we started, we didn’t know we were going to become a product company or that the capital we needed would turn out to be so enormous,” CEO Sam Altman said at a New York Times conference last week. , according to the FT. “If we knew these things, we would have chosen a different structure.
“We also stated that our intention was to treat AGI as a milestone on the path. We’ve given ourselves some flexibility because we don’t know what’s going to happen,” added Altman, who could for the first time acquire a direct stake in OpenAI as part of the restructuring.
It is also unclear when AGI happens, although Altman said at the same conference that it will happen “sooner than most people in the world think and it will have much less importance.”
Earlier this year, OpenAI board member Adam D’Angelo predicted that AGI would happen “within five to 15 years,” calling it “very, very significant change in the world when we get there.
