The boss of Tesla created the OpenAI research center at the end of 2015. The organization believes that his departure will “remove any potential conflict of interest“.

Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in a direction better able to benefit humanity. “ It is in these terms that defines OpenAI organization, founded in late 2015 by Elon Musk and Sam Altman, president of the powerful incubator Y Combinator startups.

On Tuesday, February 20, OpenAI announced in a terse statement the departure of Elon Musk from its board of directors. As an explanation, this simple sentence: “As Tesla focuses more and more on AI, it will remove any potential conflict of interest for Elon“. The latter will continue to make donations to the association and to advise, says Open AI.

A billion dollars

An amazing statement, since Tesla was already working on artificial intelligence even before the creation of OpenAI. Elon Musk, who has often alerted in recent years to the dangers of AI ( Artificial Intelligence), had imagined this organization as a bulwark against these risks. OpenAI is a center of research on artificial intelligence nonprofit, aiming to develop the technology accessible to all and to publish research articles on the subject.

The organization, which raised one billion dollars, managed to settle in two years in the landscape of artificial intelligence, thanks to the support of big names in the sector, such as Peter Thiel (co-founder of PayPal) or big companies like Amazon Web Services. On Tuesday, several of his experts co-signed with academics from Stanford, Cambridge, and Yale a noticeable report on the potential risks of malicious use of artificial intelligence.