Meta Asks The Us Government To Block Openai’s Switch To A For-profit

Dear General Bonta:

 As a California institution that builds Generative AI technology, Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta”) is profoundly concerned astir OpenAI’s effort to shed nan non-profit position nether which it was founded successful bid to recovered a for-profit entity. We impulse you to reappraisal this projected transaction, including nan value and timing of immoderate proscription of assets from OpenAI’s non-profit entity to different entities. Failing to clasp OpenAI accountable for its premier to style arsenic a non-profit could lead to a proliferation of akin start-up ventures that are notionally charitable until they are perchance profitable. The People of California personification nonstop and urgent interests successful stopping this behavior. All for-profit activities of OpenAI and its related entities should beryllium paused to protect investors and consumers alike.

In 2015, OpenAI revenge its original certificate of incorporation pinch nan State of Delaware, which reads:

This Corporation shall beryllium a nonprofit corp organized exclusively for charitable and/or acquisition purposes incorrect nan meaning of conception 501(c){3) of nan Internal Revenue Code of 1986, arsenic amended, aliases nan corresponding proviso of immoderate early United States Internal Revenue law. The circumstantial intent of this corp is to proviso backing for research, betterment and distribution of exertion related to artificial intelligence... The corp is not organized for nan backstage summation of immoderate person... The spot of this corp is irrevocably dedicated to the[se] purposes... and nary information of nan nett income aliases assets of this corp shall ever inure to nan usage of immoderate director, serviceman aliases unit thereof aliases to nan usage of immoderate backstage person.

OpenAI reaffirmed this committedness connected its very ain website years later:

Seeing nary clear measurement successful nan nationalist sector, and fixed nan occurrence of different eager projects successful backstage industry, [OpenAI] decided to prosecute this task done backstage intends bound by beardown commitments to nan nationalist good. [OpenAI] initially believed a 501(c)(3) would beryllium nan astir effective conveyance to nonstop nan betterment of safe and broadly beneficial AGI while remaining unencumbered by profit incentives.

Taking advantage of this non-profit status, OpenAI raised billions of dollars successful superior from investors to further its purported mission. The institution represented to nan State of California and nan world that it would beryllium tally without immoderate profit motivation. Investors and nan nationalist rightfully relied connected that assurance. 

Now, OpenAI wants to alteration its position while retaining each of nan benefits that enabled it to scope nan constituent it has today. That is wrong. OpenAI should not beryllium allowed to flout nan norm by taking and reappropriating assets it built arsenic a kindness and utilizing them for perchance tremendous backstage gains. 

Moreover, OpenAI’s projected conversion represents not simply a future, imaginable maltreatment of patient form. We would too impulse you to analyse whether OpenAI’s past practices are accordant pinch its obligations arsenic a non-profit – astir notably whether it has inappropriately depleted nan assets of nan non-profit by distributing assets to third-party entities.  

OpenAI’s behaviour could personification seismic implications for Silicon Valley. If permitted, OpenAI’s restructuring would correspond a paradigm displacement for exertion startups; allowing this restructuring would only entice investors to motorboat organizations arsenic non-profits, cod hundreds of millions of dollars successful tax-free donations to support investigation and development, and past presume for-profit position arsenic its exertion becomes commercially viable.

Indeed, if OpenAI’s caller business exemplary is valid, non-profit investors would get nan aforesaid for-profit upside arsenic those who put nan accepted measurement successful for-profit companies while too benefiting from taxation write-offs bestowed by nan authorities and, ultimately, nan public. That would distort nan marketplace by fundamentally requiring immoderate startup seeking to enactment competitory to adopt nan aforesaid playbook. 

We understand that Elon Musk and Shivon Zilis are presently seeking to correspond nan nationalist interests successful Musk v. Altman, No. 4:24-cv-04722-YGR (N.D. Cal.). Although we would too impulse your agency to return nonstop action, we judge that Mr. Musk and Ms. Zilis are qualified and bully positioned to correspond nan interests of Californians successful this matter. Their early, foundational roles successful OpenAI’s creation and operations and arsenic anterior members of its Board position them to understand amended than anyone what OpenAI was intended to beryllium and really its existent behaviour deviates from its charitable mission.

Meta is committed to openness and transparency successful nan transformative conception of AI. OpenAI’s charitable committedness to create safe and broadly beneficial AI free from commercialized pressures is an important one, and it should beryllium kept. Given nan breakneck velocity astatine which OpenAI is continuing its for-profit conversion, this is simply a emblematic suit pinch an urgent necessity for action.

We admit your accusation of our views and are happy to reply immoderate questions you whitethorn have.

Respectfully,

Meta Platforms