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Ai Artificial Intelligence Archive

Archives for May 2026

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
This cross of Schizer is pretty weak.

Like, yes, sure, he doesn’t understand AI, but we have lots of nonprofits, which are governed by the same set of laws. Sure, yes, he’s getting $1,500 per hour from Musk and that is probably a pretty penny — likely more than my annual salary — but also... who cares. I was not overwhelmed by Schizer’s testimony but this cross isn’t doing anything to knock it down for me.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Basically everything Schizer is saying is couched as a hypothetical...

because the jury is engaged in a fact-finding mission. Anyway, of a hypothetical, he says: “You don’t want to be known as a liar.” Evidently Schizer is unfamiliar with the current president of the United States.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
We are now hearing from David Schizer, one of Musk’s expert witnesses.

He’s a professor of law and economics at Columbia Law School. He specializes in nonprofits, nonprofit taxation, and management. We are going through an exhaustive list of his qualifications.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
You may wonder: are we still listening to the video deposition of Tasha McCauley?

Yes. The main thing I am taking away from McCauley’s and Toner’s testimony is that the board got really bad advice from whatever lawyers they consulted on the firing Altman thing. I mean, I hope they consulted lawyers. I don’t think that’s come up in the testimony.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
We are still listening to McCauley.

Increasingly I feel that the only thing happening here is Musk just trying to remind the world that Altman is untrustworthy. (Ironic!) McCauley’s testimony about the profit incentives is neither here nor there when it comes to the donations and whether any promises were made to Musk.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Tasha McCauley is testifying now in a video deposition.

We are once again going over concerns about Sam Altman’s dishonesty. “Because of this pattern of lying, people in the company were copying that behavior, and there was a culture of lying and a culture of deceit,” she says.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
“Do you have any idea how you ended up in this courtroom?”

Oh sure, Musk’s team objected and the question was withdrawn, but the OpenAI attorney said what I was thinking. Why is she here? She’s not a board member. She’s not an exec. She didn’t witness any decisions that bear on Musk’s donations. I guess the idea is that she’s testifying that OpenAI abandoned its mission? But we’ve established already that there were no known conditions on Musk’s donation yesterday, with Shivon Zilis.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
I am having a hard time taking Rosie Campbell seriously.

Look, I’m not bought in on AGI at all, and the “AGI readiness” team getting disbanded in 2024 happened as it became clearer to everyone but the AI cultists that AGI wasn’t possible. (It was clear to some of us from the jump.) I have no idea how this is landing for the jury, but getting safe, beneficial AGI is silly if AI superintelligence isn’t possible.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
We are now hearing from Rosie Campbell, a former OpenAI employee.

She initially worked on the “applied” team, but then moved into a research team because it was “more interesting” to work on the “policy” and “AGI readiness” teams, and think about what to do in the case AGI happened. I also prefer daydreaming to actually working.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
OpenAI’s board discussed merging with Anthropic during “the Blip.”

They also discussed Dario Amodei becoming CEO of OpenAI. “I thought it was an option worth considering among our set of difficult options,” Toner says.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Helen Toner is now talking about the board’s decision-making process.

Neither Altman or Brockman had been allowed to tell their side of the story, nor were their HR files pulled by the board. There was no input from Microsoft, or any other investors or customers. Toner smiles when she’s frustrated or annoyed, which she sometimes is by this line of questioning.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
YGR is back on the bench.

I am expecting a relatively sedate day today. We’re going to see more of former OpenAI board member Helen Toner’s deposition. Right now lawyers are discussing when the case will end; we expect closing arguments a week from today.