OpenAI, which promotes the paid provision of high-performance AI, was originally a non-profit organization

OpenAI, which has released a series of high-performance AI technologies such as the chat AI ' ChatGPT ' and the transcription AI ' Whisper ,' was originally an open-source, non-profit AI research organization. However, as of 2023, it has been pointed out that 'the source code of many of its products is not publicly available, and it is clearly behaving like a for-profit company.'

OpenAI Is Now Everything It Promised Not to Be: Corporate, Closed-Source, and For-Profit
https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d3naz/openai-is-now-everything-it-promised-not-to-be-corporate-closed-source-and-for-profit

OpenAI is an AI research organization founded in December 2015 with funding from Elon Musk and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Garrett Hoffman. At the time of its founding, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated, 'Of course, it's possible to make a profit from OpenAI, but that's not our intention,' emphasizing that the organization would operate as a non-profit. In a statement at the time of its founding, Altman also emphasized that the organization would develop AI as open source, stating, 'Our goal is to create value for everyone, not shareholders. We strongly encourage researchers to publish their papers, code, and blog posts, and if we obtain a patent, we will share it with the world.'

OpenAI, a non-profit research organization for artificial intelligence to prevent the misuse of robots, is being established by prominent IT entrepreneurs and investors - GIGAZINE

by Hersson Piratoba

In February 2019, OpenAI released the text generation AI 'GPT-2.' However, at the time of GPT-2's release , the release of the paper and model data was postponed due to the risk that it could easily generate natural-sounding sentences. After that, OpenAI gradually released the model data of 'GPT-2,' but researchers pointed out that 'postponing the release of the paper was a mistake.'

In June 2020, an enhanced version of GPT-2, the text generation AI GPT-3, was announced. However, OpenAI signed an exclusive licensing agreement with Microsoft in September 2022. Since then, the source code for GPT-3 has not been made public until the time of writing.

Microsoft acquires exclusive license for world-class language model 'GPT-3' - GIGAZINE

As mentioned above, the idea of 'open sourcing AI' is beginning to show signs of fading, and at the same time, the idea of 'operating as a non-profit organization' is also wavering. OpenAI announced ' ChatGPT Plus,' a paid service for 'ChatGPT ,' in February 2023, and began offering a paid API for using ChatGPT in March 2023. Furthermore, they are working to monetize the AI they develop, such as by announcing ' Foundry ,' an AI platform that allows users to use the latest AI models such as 'GPT-4' for a monthly fee of 3.5 million to 20 million yen.

When OpenAI first released its paid API in 2020, it explained that commercialization would help cover the costs of AI research and ensuring safety. It has also been pointed out that the company is under pressure to monetize after receiving investments worth hundreds of billions of yen from Microsoft.

Microsoft announces long-term partnership with OpenAI, investing hundreds of billions of yen - GIGAZINE