OpenAI said Tuesday it has reorganized its ownership structure and transformed its business into a public benefit corporation, paving the way for ChatGPT it's easier for a manufacturer to profit from its AI technology, although it technically remains under the control of a non-profit organization.
The company also said it has signed a new agreement with its longtime sponsor Microsoft, which gives the software giant an approximately 27 percent stake in OpenAI a new for-profit corporation, but changes some details of their close partnership.
For more than a year, OpenAI's proposed changes to its corporate structure have drawn scrutiny from regulators, competitors and advocates concerned about the social impact of AI.
The attorneys general of Delaware, where OpenAI is registered, and California, where it is headquartered, said they were investigating the proposed changes. Neither office immediately responded to requests for comment Tuesday.
OpenAI said it completed the restructuring “after nearly a year of constructive dialogue” with offices in both states.
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“OpenAI has completed a recapitalization, simplifying its corporate structure,” Bret Taylor, chairman of OpenAI’s board of directors, said in a blog post Tuesday. “The non-profit organization still controls the for-profit organization and now has a direct path to pre-AGI core resources.”
AGI stands for artificial general intelligence, which OpenAI defines as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable jobs.” OpenAI was founded as a non-profit organization in 2015 with the mission of safely creating AGI for the benefit of humanity.
OpenAI has previously said its own board will decide when an agreement is reached with AGI, effectively ending its partnership with Microsoft. But it now says that “once OpenAI announces an AGI, the statement will be reviewed by an independent peer review panel” and that Microsoft's rights to OpenAI's confidential research methods “will remain until the review panel reviews the AGI or until 2030, whichever comes first.” Microsoft will also retain some commercial rights to OpenAI products “post-AGI.”
Microsoft posted the same announcement about the revised partnership on Tuesday but declined to comment further.
Going forward, the nonprofit will be called the OpenAI Foundation, and Taylor said it will commit $25 billion to healthcare, disease treatment and protection against cybersecurity risks associated with AI. He did not specify over what period of time these funds will be sprayed.
Robert Weissman, co-president of the nonprofit Public Citizen, said the arrangement does not guarantee the nonprofit's independence, likening it to a corporate foundation that would serve the interests of for-profit organizations.
Even though a nonprofit's board can technically retain control, Weissman said control is “illusory because there is no evidence that a nonprofit has ever imposed its values on for-profit entities.”
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