Musk calls on OpenAI to reveal the inside story of firing Ultraman: What exactly did he do?

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Sunday that the potential dangers of artificial intelligence are so great that OpenAI, currently the most powerful artificial intelligence company in the world, should disclose the reasons for its firing of former CEO Sam Altman. OpenAI announced the firing of Altman on Friday, explaining its reasons only by saying that the company "no longer has confidence in his ability to continue to lead."

Responding to a post on the X platform by former PayPal COO David Sacks, Musk said: "Given the risks and power of advanced artificial intelligence, the public deserves to be informed why the board felt they had to make such a drastic decision."

Musk later said in a separate post: "It is very important for the public to know why the board is so unhappy with their actions. If this is an issue of AI safety, it will affect the entire planet."

Musk was a board member of OpenAI but left the company in 2018, citing conflicts of interest with Tesla. However, Musk later said in an interview that he had begun to worry about the impact the company might have on society. It's worth noting, though, that Musk's own artificial intelligence company may only benefit from OpenAI's current chaos.

One possible reason for Ultraman's dismissal may be that company leaders are increasingly nervous about the dangers artificial intelligence poses to humanity. Altman has been actively seeking funding to expand development of the technology, while several other board members have called on the company to do more to mitigate potential threats.

For example, OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever—who played a role in Altman's firing—is inclined to believe that AI should be acted upon with greater caution given its potential harm to society.

Before Ultraman stepped down, Sutskov reportedly established a "super calibration" team within the company to ensure that future versions of GPT-4 (the technology behind ChatGPT) would not cause harm to humans.

Musk on Sunday retweeted Sutskov's Oct. 7 tweet: "If you value intelligence above all other human qualities, woe betide you."

Musk later commented: "I am very worried. Elijah has a good moral code and does not pursue power. He would not take such drastic action unless he felt absolutely necessary."