OpenAI restructured its business model to more easily make profit, but Delaware and California’s Attorneys General secured guardrails to make sure safety and public good are ranked above profits.
OpenAI originally planned to strip oversight powers from its nonprofit entity entirely.
But discussions with Jennings and California AG Rob Bonta led to a change in direction: OpenAI would convert to a public benefit corporation controlled by its nonprofit wing.
Jennings said her role in the process is to ensure OpenAI continues to serve people over profits even as it transitions in part to a for-profit entity.
“The first is that the original purpose of the charitable organization – in this case, to utilize artificial intelligence to benefit all of humanity – that that mission continue,” Jennings said in an interview with Delaware Public Media. “And second, that the not for profit, the charitable organization, be capitalized sufficiently to fulfill that mission.”
OpenAI is headquartered in California and incorporate in Delaware, so both AGs had a role in the discussions on restructuring. Jennings’s office will monitor the company on a quarterly basis alongside the California AG office.
“Hopefully we will not have to do it, but if we have to do it, you know I'm not shy,” Jennings said. “I'll file a lawsuit if I have to file a lawsuit, and so will the California AG. But we believe we put measures in place that sufficiently make safety and security the first interest of these organizations.”
The AGs hired an independent organization to look over OpenAI’s finances to make sure assets will adequately flow to the charitable corporation.
OpenAI must add two independent board members to its Safety and Security Committee to ensure there are people speaking on behalf of what’s best for the non-profit. The entire Committee will be under the nonprofit organization.
One of the independent board members will be a safety expert. Jennings said she expects the safety expert would report any issues immediately.
“So we will have two independent board members that are able to exercise their own judgments about the safety of the for-profit organization,” Jennings said. “That's really critical. I think everyone knows, [whoever’s] experienced working with an AI product or has even read about it, that the power of the systems going forward is enormous, and so much good can come from the work that these systems will do to benefit humanity.”
The process took nearly a year for the AGs and OpenAI representatives to negotiate guardrails and other plans for the future.
Jennings stressed that the potential for public good is unlimited, but she cautioned the harm could be just as enormous.
“I think this is one of the most important issues of our time,” Jennings said. “I can't emphasize enough the power of artificial intelligence as it grows in its capacity to do amazing work for the good of all humanity, and I know they're going to put billions of dollars into trying to find cures for disease and improve a health care system.”
The Delaware and California AG offices will continue to act as watchdogs as OpenAI’s restructured model settles in.
