Musk: Without Me There Would Be No ChatGPT, I Even Named the Company
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On November 26th, in a recent interview, Musk recalled his involvement in the founding of OpenAI and stated without me there would be no OpenAI, and I even named the company.
Musk also mentioned that Ilya Sutskever, a key talent behind ChatGPT, was recruited by him, and without me, there would be no ChatGPT as it is today.
Musk said: "Although I'm not sure of the exact number, I invested approximately $50 million in OpenAI."
This $50 million did not grant Musk any participation or control over OpenAI: "Looking back now, I admit I was a complete idiot."
He recalled that the name 'OpenAI' was inspired by his dissatisfaction with Google DeepMind's closed-source approach at the time.
Musk believed that after Google acquired DeepMind, it created a 'unipolar world' in AI, but the master of this world did not seem to care much about AI safety.
Thus, to counter Google's DeepMind and oppose Google's profit-driven closed-source behavior, Musk co-founded a company with several Silicon Valley leaders and named it 'OpenAI.'
Regarding OpenAI's later shift to a for-profit, closed-source company, Musk lamented, 'This completely contradicts the original purpose of my funding.'
Beyond the name and funding, Musk also emphasized that even the key technical talent crucial to OpenAI's development was recruited by him. Among them, Sutskever hesitated for a long time about whether to join OpenAI and only made the decision after Musk's persuasion.
After joining OpenAI, Sutskever led the development of GPT-1, 2, 3, and the DALL-E series, driving the rapid advancement of ChatGPT.
Finally, Musk stated: 'When the critical moment for AI arrives, who controls it is crucial. I worry that Microsoft might have more control than OpenAI's leadership team.'