- Sam Altman has fired back at Elon Musk's criticisms of OpenAI.
- At an event in India, Altman countered Musk's claims saying he's "totally wrong about this stuff."
OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman has again fired back at billionaire Elon Musk's criticism that the company just cares about profit over safety, saying that such claims are completely false.
Altman visited Indian capital Delhi and attended an event hosted by the Indian newspaper The Economic Times on Wednesday where he discussed the wider impact of AI and was questioned by top tech startups and policymakers in India.
One question put to Altman was about Musk's issue with the company receiving billions of dollars in investment from tech giant Microsoft despite claiming to be a "non–profit" firm.
Altman responded by saying: "I don't really want to get into like an Elon feud fight. I like the dude. I think he's totally wrong about this stuff. He can sort of say whatever he wants but I'm like proud of what we're doing and I think we're going to make a positive contribution to the world and I try to stay above all that."
Musk co-founded OpenAI alongside Altman in 2015, but resigned from its board of directors in 2018. At the time the company described itself as a nonprofit developing AI "in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole," per Insider.
Since Musk's departure from the company, he has regularly criticized it, even saying in a tweet recently that he believes it's become a "maximum profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft," which was not what he "intended at all."
Altman has countered these claims before calling Musk a "jerk" in one podcast, saying: "Most of that is not true, and I think Elon knows that."
Altman also admitted that Musk's concerns about AI safety are understandable but that he should do more to acknowledge OpenAI's work to resolve such issues, in an episode of Lex Fridman's podcast.
In March, Musk signed an open letter calling for a six-month pause on the development of AI more powerful than OpenAI's GPT-4 because of the dangers and risks it poses to civilization, alongside AI experts and figures like Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque.