A small non-profit has accused Sam Altman-led OpenAI of intimidation tactics to dilute California’s proposed AI safety law, known in short as SB 53.
The accusation came in a now viral post on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), by 29-year-old Nathan Calvin, legal counsel for Encode, who alleged that OpenAI is working to undermine the California Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act (SB 53), which it is under debate by lawmakers.
In his own lengthy post addressing the issue, OpenAI’s chief strategy officer Jason Kwon, dismissed the allegations made by Calvin, and called Encode’s funding under question — hinting that the public accusation was funded by Elon Musk.
What are the allegations?
Calvin alleged that OpenAI is using its legal battle against Elon Musk to intimidate critics, including Encode. Further, in his post, he clarified that Encode did not get funding from Elon Musk.
“I believe OpenAI used the pretext of their lawsuit against Elon Musk to intimidate their critics and imply that Elon is behind all of them,” he said.
He alleged that OpenAI wrote a letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office seeking to dilute SB 53 requirement that would mandate companies to publish a public frontier AI framework and a transparency report when deploying or substantially modifying a model, according to a Fortune report.
He said he is speaking out now as SB 53 negotations were still ongoing and he wanted to wait until the bill was signed. Another reason he said was that OpenAI’s Chris Lehane in a LinkedIn post claimed the company “worked to improve” SB 53.
Calvin called the experience the “most stressful period of my professional life” and noted that OpenAI’s products and research are “worthy of genuine praise”, adding that many of the company’s employees care about being a force for good. “I want to see that side of OAI, but instead I see them trying to intimidate critics into silence. Does anyone believe these actions are consistent with OpenAI’s nonprofit mission to ensure that AGI benefits humanity?” he questioned.
Concerns raised over allegations
Notably, Calvin’s accusations generated reactions from OpenAI’s current and past employees, including head of mission alignment Joshua Achiam, who in a personal thread of X called the developments “not great”.
He shared Calvin’s post saying, “At what is possibly a risk to my whole career I will say: this doesn’t seem great. Lately I have been describing my role as something like a “public advocate” so I’d be remiss if I didn’t share some thoughts for the public on this. Some thoughts in thread…”
Achiam in his post urged OpenAI to distinguish between the powerhouse that is Elon Musk and constructive critics. “We can’t be doing things that make us into a frightening power instead of a virtuous one. We have a duty and a mission to all of humanity, and the bar to pursue that duty is remarkably high,” he said.
He was not alone. Helen Toner, a former OpenAI board member who resigned after Sam Altman’s failed removal as chief in 2023, said that while the company does great things, “the dishonesty and intimidation tactics in their policy work are really not.”
Tyler Johnston, founder of AI watchdog group the Midas Project, also shared an alleged intimidation experience, in his response to Calvin’s post, saying, “[I] got a knock at my door in Oklahoma with a demand for every text/email/document that, in the ‘broadest sense permitted,’ relates to OpenAI’s governance and investors.”
Johnston said the aim seemed to be to check if he was funded by Elon Musk, adding, “Had they just asked if I’m funded by Musk, I would have been happy to give them a simple ‘man I wish’ and call it a day. Instead, they asked for what was, practically speaking, a list of every journalist, congressional office, partner organization, former employee, and member of the public we’d spoken to about their restructuring.”
How has OpenAI responded?
While Sam Altman or OpenAI’s official channels have not made any comment yet. Kwon took to X to question the motivation behind the allegations.
“We wanted to know, and still are curious to know, whether Encode is working in collaboration with third parties who have a commercial competitive interest adverse to OpenAI. The stated narrative makes it sound like something it wasn’t.” Kwon said. He also included an excerpt of the subpoena that he said showed all the requests for documents OpenAI made.
The San Francisco Standard in September reported that OpenAI subpoenaed its most vocal critics in August, over concerns that Elon Musk is funding negative opinions to target the company.
Notably, Elon Musk and OpenAI are locked in an ugly, public battle over the company’s governance and turn to for-profit structure.
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