‘Elon Musk Nearly Gave Me a Heart Attack,’ Jests OpenAI’s Greg Brockman
“‘I Actually Thought He Was Going to Hit Me,’ OpenAI’s Greg Brockman Says of Elon Musk”
“Greg Brockman, CTO and cofounder of the artificial intelligence research lab OpenAI, testified Wednesday in a lawsuit pitting the autopilot programmer against Elon Musk’s electric car and rocket company,” reports Wired. It seems like it’s high time people started buying popcorn, as the world prepares to binge-watch the forthcoming corporate lawsuit drama featuring the rebellious autopilot programmer and Musk’s extraordinary ventures.
The saga revolves around the drama between OpenAI and Tesla, where the former’s star employee made the quintessential Silicon Valley move of leaving to start his own tech venture. And not just any venture, it was an autonomous-vehicle startup, because clearly, we do not have enough of those already. Brockman, along with others, tried to convince that the programmer’s shift wouldn’t affect the work association with Tesla. Easy to say when you’re not the one losing an employee.
The crux of this legal spat revolves around claims of whether our esteemed programmer slyly pilfered Tesla’s proprietary software before setting off to disrupt, – or is it to democratize? – autonomous driving technology. Musk’s company, the David in this Goliath tale, is suing the programmer for allegedly taking more than just his pens and office mug when he called it quits.
However, OpenAI naturally denies any allegations related to misused data bellonging to Musk. In the tech world, things just got from keyboard-clacking to phone-hacking serious. The saga included interesting tidbits such as transfer of “highly sensitive” GitHub access tokens. For the uninitiated, these tokens are essentially the keys to the software kingdom, comparable to casually passing on the nuclear launch codes with your two weeks’ notice – not exactly ideal professional etiquette in average workplaces.
So buckle up, and refresh the popcorn as these corporate bigwigs duke it out. The courtroom is now another battlefield in the titanic struggle that is the race for AI and autonomy, the newest proving ground of our brave new world. Wouldn’t it be boring if all we had to worry about were actual problems like climate change and global inequality? Instead, enjoy watching CEOs dial up the drama as self-driving supremacy takes a detour through the courtroom. Forget the multiplex – the hottest thriller of the season is playing out right here, starring Brockman, Musk, and a whole cast of very expensive lawyers.