Save StorySave this storySave StorySave this story<\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s episode of the Musk v. Altman<\/em> trial kicked off with a unique proposition: OpenAI wanted to bring its ass into the courtroom, and lay it bare before the jury. It\u2019s a good thing lady justice wears that blindfold.<\/p>\n A lawyer for Sam Altman\u2019s AI behemoth, Bradley Wilson, approached US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers and handed her a small gold statue with a white stone base. It depicted the rear end of a donkey\u2014with two legs, a butt, and a tail\u2014and was inscribed with the message, \u201cJoshua Achiam, never stop being a jackass for safety.\u201d<\/p>\n OpenAI employees at the time, Dario Amodei and David Luan, presented the gift to chief futurist Achiam, who started at the company as an intern in 2017 and now leads its work studying how society is changing in response to AI. Achiam testified on Wednesday that he interrupted Elon Musk\u2019s parting speech from OpenAI in 2018 to warn that the billionaire\u2019s desire to develop AGI at Tesla could come at the expense of safety. Wilson added that the trophy commemorates some \u201cstrong language\u201d that Musk used toward Achiam in response\u2014allegedly, calling him a jackass.<\/p>\n \u201cHe snapped and called me a jackass,\u201d Achiam said, describing the remark as tense and unfriendly.<\/p>\n OpenAI initially requested to present the physical object during Achiam\u2019s testimony, arguing that it adds to their case. While Musk\u2019s team said the statue was irrelevant, Judge Gonzalez Rogers said she would consider allowing it when it\u2019s referenced to corroborate the story. However, she seemed less than thrilled about accepting it as official evidence, which would put it in the court\u2019s possession. \u201cI don\u2019t want it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Attorneys for OpenAI ultimately decided not to try to show the physical specimen to the nine jurors. But Achiam spoke about its importance. \u201cWhat was significant to me was one, that my colleagues agreed it was important to stand up for principles and stand up to very powerful people like Elon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Marc Toberoff, an attorney for Musk, told WIRED in an email that the trophy was "irrelevant to the claims in the case and issues in the case and prejudicial.\u201d<\/p>\n Representatives for OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Musk's lawsuit accuses OpenAI of effectively stealing a charity, misusing his $38 million in donations to build an $850 billion business. In response, OpenAI has argued that Musk has always cared more about controlling a top-tier AGI lab than funding a nonprofit.<\/p>\n Earlier in the trial, Musk lawyer Steven Molo asked Musk if he ever called an OpenAI employee a \u201cjackass.\u201d Musk said \u201cit\u2019s possible\u201d he did at some point, but that he didn\u2019t mean for it to be offensive. \u201cSometimes you have to use language that gets people out of their comfort zone, if we\u2019re going in the wrong direction,\u201d Musk said.<\/p>\n OpenAI has long been proud of its jackass. When The Wall Street Journal asked about the statue in 2023, Altman told them, \u201cYou\u2019ve got to have a little fun \u2026 This is the stuff that culture gets made out of.\u201d<\/p>\n Achiam, meanwhile, testified that he has sold at least $10 million in OpenAI shares and still owns tens of millions of dollars more. Not a bad outcome for the accused \u201cjackass.\u201d<\/p>\n Update 5\/13\/26 3:11pm ET: This story has been updated with testimony from Joshua Achiam and a statement from Musk\u2019s attorney.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Save StorySave this storySave StorySave this story Wednesday\u2019s episode of the Musk v. Altman trial kicked off with a unique proposition: OpenAI wanted to bring its ass into the courtroom, and lay it bare before the jury. It\u2019s a good thing lady justice wears that blindfold. A lawyer for Sam Altman\u2019s AI behemoth, Bradley Wilson, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50397,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-50396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}