🤖 OpenAI Under Fire: Former Employees and Experts Call to Halt CorporatizationÂ
Over 30 leading AI specialists, including former OpenAI employees and the legendary scientist Geoffrey Hinton, have issued an open letter to the attorneys general of Delaware and California, urging them to block OpenAI’s radical transformation into a for-profit structure. Their warning is clear: the shift from a nonprofit mission to a profit-driven model could undermine the very idea of safe and human-centered AI development.
Among the signatories are nine former OpenAI employees, whose names remain associated with the company’s critical formative stages. They claim that the restructuring, driven by a $40 billion investment offer from SoftBank, will erase the last barriers preventing OpenAI from fully adopting a purely market-driven approach. Instead of advancing AGI for the benefit of humanity, they argue, resources and decision-making will be redirected towards maximizing shareholder profits.
This is not the first alarm. Earlier, 12 former employees had filed to join Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman. Today’s letter reinforces the sense that a deep internal split — ethical, ideological, and economic — is brewing within the AI revolution.
Legislative approval must be secured by the end of the year; otherwise, the fate of the SoftBank deal and the new organizational model will hang in the balance.
While nothing currently indicates the plan’s collapse, the fact that the opposition includes individuals who helped build OpenAI fundamentally changes the tone of the discussion.
While investors still see OpenAI as the ultimate venture dream, inside the AI community, a critical question is growing louder:
Are we building intelligence for all — or a new wave of Silicon Valley corporate monopolism?
Read the full text of the open letter.
