AGI Is the Elephant in the Musk v. OpenAI Courtroom

Lawyers for Elon Musk and OpenAI are set today to deliver closing arguments in their trial, which centers on Musk’s allegations that OpenAI breached a charitable trust, in part by violating its charitable mission. The two sides disagree on almost everything in the case, but one phrase is likely to be mentioned in both speeches: artificial general intelligence. 

AGI has been both ever-present in the trial and has eluded direct discussion. The concept of human-level AI is embedded in OpenAI’s mission—to ensure AGI benefits humanity—placing it at the heart of Musk’s claims in the case. AGI is also an esoteric idea: even AI gurus, let alone average jurors, can struggle to define exactly what it means or when it might arrive. 

Thankfully for the jury, the judge in the trial reassured them that “this isn’t a technical case” the way a high tech patent dispute is. Instead, it’s about broken promises, said judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. In part to spare the jury, she has barred both sides in the lawsuit from going into detail on the risks associated with AGI, saying, “the question here is whether there was a breach of charitable trust. That’s the issue. This is not a trial on the safety risks of artificial intelligence.”