Law

Sam Altman did not return, but our first witness has been called: Elon Musk.

Elon is going to take the stand; stay tuned. The jury is reentering the courtroom after listening to arguments from OpenAI and Microsoft, then taking a short break.

According to Microsoft’s lawyer Russell Cohen, making his opening argument in Musk v. Altman, saying that each round of funding (including across the events of November 2023) provided more resources, which produced better research and better models that justified further investment.

Following the opening argument by Altman’s lawyer, Russell Cohen began Microsoft’s argument. According to Cohen, the dispute has little to do with Microsoft (which just relaxed its arrangement with OpenAI).

As Savitt wrapped up his opening argument, he leaned on saying that Musk’s lawsuit came after the statute of limitations, and that he “sat on his claims for years.” The sour grapes only kicked in once it turned out that OpenAI was valuable.

According to Altman’s lawyer, William Savitt. Continuing his opening argument, Savitt brought up an email from OpenAI scientist Ilya Sutskever around the time Musk’s quarterly donations ended.

According to Savitt, once Brockman and Ilya Sutskever built an AI model capable of besting Dota 2 players in 2017 and realized the importance of compute, they held dozens of meetings that included Musk, Jared Birchall (CEO of Neuralink and Musk’s longtime wealth manager), and Shivon Zilis (you know) about how to structure OpenAI for profit.

William Savitt, who is representing Sam Altman, continued his opening argument, saying that Musk only started to care about supposedly broken promises by Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman once he became a competitor. “The only person who claims to have heard those promises is Mr. Musk himself.”

The lawyers representing Sam Altman and OpenAI are not mincing words when it comes to Musk’s claims in their opening argument, saying that we’re only here “because Mr. Musk didn’t get his way at OpenAI.”

Companies Altman invested in got contracts from OpenAI that Altman approved, Molo says. That’s how Altman is making OpenAI money without an OpenAI equity stake.

Molo’s mic just cut out. YGR: “What can we tell you, we’re funded by the federal government.” It was reset and cut out again, “Is this a Microsoft product?” Molo asks.

The point at which Musk’s lawyer says the change occurred was the third Microsoft deal on October 20th, 2022. That is when OpenAI was no longer for the good of humanity, and also when Musk hired a lawyer.

Musk’s lawyer, Molo, says that Musk is concerned about what happens when computers are smarter than people, and that there are people who think that’s not too far away. He says that’s artificial general intelligence, and we’ll be hearing about it a lot.

Steven Molo, Musk’s lawyer, is giving an opening statement in Musk v. Altman. The case isn’t about Musk, he says. It’s about Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. After yesterday’s sentiments on Musk, Molo is making a point of asking jurors to put personal sentiments aside. Musk will be the first witness,

We expect opening arguments today.

Opening statements tomorrow.

YGR denied those challenges. “The reality is that people don’t like him,” she said. “Many people don’t like him. but that doesn’t mean that Americans nevertheless can’t have integrity for the judicial process.”

While the lawyers ask questions of prospective jurors, apparently there are Happenings outside the courtroom.

We’ll get another set of 20 shortly. So far, five people have disliked Musk enough to bring it up, but all but one say they can be fair. Lots of people have used AI, with varying opinions on it.

Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has introduced herself to prospective jurors; so have all the assorted lawyers. We are looking for nine people. This case should be done by May 21st, at which point it goes to the jury.

I’m in the courtroom — and jury selection will begin shortly. Sam Altman is here, but I haven’t seen Elon Musk.

A report by Bloomberg points out that the DOJ has joined an xAI lawsuit against the Consumer Protections for Artificial Intelligence law that is set to take effect in Colorado on June 30th. In their filing, the government’s lawyers claim that by requiring developers to take “reasonable care to protect consumers” from algorithmic discrimination, the law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.

Uber lost the first of thousands of cases seeking to hold it responsible for sexual misconduct tied to its services. Similar to ongoing social media trials, these cases are bellwethers that could later inform a broader settlement. Uber spokesperson Matt Kallman told The Times it has “strong grounds for appeal.”

The European Commission says it will order Meta to roll back its policy to only allow rival AI assistants on WhatsApp for a year if they pay an access fee, which appears to violate EU competition rules. Meta’s conduct “risks blocking competitors from entering or expanding in the rapidly growing market for AI assistants,” according to the Commission.

The message was shared by Daniel Moreno-Gama in an online chat in January, months before he was arrested for allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail at the OpenAI CEO’s home. Moreno-Gama added that his words shouldn’t be taken literally, but he’s one of many that have venerated the United Healthcare CEO murder.

Yuga Labs, the creator of the now-depreciated line of NFTs, settled its lawsuit against artists Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen, who were accused of launching a copycat RR/BAYC NFT collection, as reported by CoinDesk.

Murphy Campbell’s nightmare isn’t over yet. Distributor Vydia has rescinded its claims to her YouTube videos. But her Facebook and Instagram posts about the incident have been removed for copyright infringement. Neither Meta nor Vydia have responded to a request for comment, but it’s unclear what could possibly have been infringing in this video (reposted by United Musicians & Allied Workers).

A fascinating profile on litigator Jay Edelson, a longtime tech adversary who’s been filing cases against OpenAI and Google over their LLMs. “Courts are fed up with these companies, and juries are kind of sick of big tech for doing a lot of damage to society,” Edelson says. Sam Altman has called him a “leech tarted up as a freedom fighter,” and Edelson says Altman is “Lex Luthor.”

Shortly upon returning to office, Trump terminated CBP One, an app the Biden administration used to streamline border processing, and revoked the status of 900,000 migrants who had used it to apply for temporary parole, sending them a mass email reading, “It is time for you to leave the United States.”