OpenAI is considering giving Microsoft access to artificial general intelligence, despite previous intentions not to commercialize that technology.
The big dilemma OpenAI is grappling with: may general artificial intelligence (AGI) be commercialized? Right now, AGI is “explicitly excluded from commercial agreements”: the website literally says so. OpenAI, according to Financial Times sources, may want to remove that clause to allow its partners, primarily Microsoft, access to the technology anyway.
AGI is the wet dream of OpenAI chief Sam Altman. We speak of general intelligence when AI systems reach the level where they could learn every intellectual task the human brain can perform. We are a long way from that yet, but OpenAI is already thinking hard about what it will do when it gets to that point.
Conflicting interests
The discussion surrounding AGI is illustrative of the staggered state in which OpenAI finds itself. The development of AGI is now in the hands of the organization’s non-profit branch. The latter believes that AGI is too risky to put it in the hands of commercial partners.
Altman sees it differently. The CEO is trying to turn OpenAI into a for-profit company in which the nonprofit will remain, but have less weight to carry. That means OpenAI will have to appease its partners and investors. OpenAI would therefore have to promise its most generous investor Microsoft access to AGI models. Altman hopes that promise will keep them opening their moneybags to sponsor the expensive development process.
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By the way, OpenAI does not view AGI as the “end point” of artificial intelligence. The technology will continue to evolve further and further. All this still sounds like distant futures, but OpenAI is also active in the present. The company is running a “Christmas campaign” full of announcements, the first gifts of which we have been allowed to unwrap.