Founding and original nonprofit mission

Summary

OpenAI was founded in December 2015 as a nonprofit organization (OpenAI, Inc.) by a group of prominent researchers and entrepreneurs, including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, and others. In its founding charter, OpenAI defined its mission around ensuring that artificial general intelligence (AGI) “benefits all of humanity.” The organization also emphasized the importance of prioritizing a “good outcome for all” over its own self-interest and described AI as something that should extend individual human wills and be broadly and evenly distributed. From the start, OpenAI’s original nonprofit mission was paired with an intention to collaborate openly with other institutions by making certain patents and research publicly available. However, as the organization evolved, it later restricted access to its most capable models for competitive and safety reasons. Overall, the founding mission framed OpenAI’s long-term goal as building leading research capacity to help ensure AGI is developed and used in ways that serve society broadly.

Key Points

• 1

  OpenAI was founded in December 2015 as a nonprofit (OpenAI, Inc.).

• 2

  Its founding charter set the mission to ensure AGI “benefits all of humanity.”

• 3

  OpenAI aimed to collaborate openly by sharing some patents and research, while later restricting access to the most capable models for safety and competitive reasons.