The AI developer was founded as “an explicitly safety-focused non-profit and made a variety of safety related promises in its charter,” Geoffrey Hinton, the University of Toronto emeritus professor said in a statement to non-profit Encode. “Allowing it to tear all of that up when it becomes inconvenient sends a very bad message to other actors in the ecosystem.” (The Logic)

Talking point: OpenAI is trying to become more like a regular tech company, restructuring so that its original non-profit no longer has total control of its for-profit business. The firm argues the new setup is essential to raise more money so it can keep advancing AI. Elon Musk and his new startup X.AI, along with Canadian executive Shivon Zilis, are trying to stop the restructuring in court. Last week, Encode filed a brief backing their case, and Hinton has thrown his support behind the non-profit. The AI pioneer has repeatedly warned that AI developers will ignore safety to chase profits, and said he was “particularly proud” that former student Ilya Sutskever “fired” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during a brief coup in November 2023.