15 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Elizabeth Lopatto

Elizabeth Lopatto

Senior Reporter

Senior Reporter

    More From Elizabeth Lopatto

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Toner says she found out about ChatGPT by seeing screenshots on Twitter.

    She wasn’t surprised she hadn’t been told, though, because “I was used to the board not being very informed about things.” She says that “caused me to believe that [Altman] was not motivated to help the board perform the oversight role.”

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Making AI models is “more like alchemy than chemistry,” Toner says.

    That means there’s no clear-cut way to test for safety. People are just throwing things together to see what happens. She refers to OpenAI’s safety board’s methods as becoming “somewhat less slapdash” over time.

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    We are now looking at Helen Toner’s deposition.

    This should be about an hour. YGR has told the jury that if she sees them falling asleep, she’s going stop the video and have them stand and stretch.

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Microsoft would like to be excluded from this narrative.

    Every time a MSFT lawyer gets up to question a witness in Musk v. Altman, it’s “And Microsoft wasn’t there?” with an occasional addition of “And Satya Nadella wasn’t there either?” This gets funnier every time it happens.

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    ”It’s not in my neurons,” Zilis says, instead of “I don’t remember.”

    She is asked about texting Musk about the Microsoft deal with OpenAI — that the structure was not maximum profit and Microsoft was not in control. She looks at the evidence, and says she sees it there but... “it’s not in my neurons, it’s not in my brain, but I see it.” Okay.

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Shivon Zilis brainstormed possible scenarios for AI.

    Three were Tesla AI. One was OpenAI as a B-corp subsidiary of Tesla. One was Altman as anchor for TeslaAI. But my favorite? “Find a way to get Demis. Seriously…. Demis really does fanboy hard and I don’t think he’s immoral… just amoral. If he hung around E perhaps it would force him to think about humanity more.” Hassabis is really haunting these guys.

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Musk offered Sam Altman a board seat at Tesla...

    as part of his push to increase Tesla’s AI presence. “Those who want to work on large scale AI research don’t currently think of Tesla, and Elon wants to change that by announcing his intention to create a world-class AI lab,” Zilis wrote in 2017.

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Shivon’s emails aren’t great for Musk.

    We are seeing more details about Zilis advocating for Musk’s plan to wrap OpenAI into Tesla. “Tesla solves the funding issue immediately… Tesla at least has option to bury,” reads one email from Zilis. “They haven’t internalized the advantages to burying this in Tesla for stealth advantage,” reads another.

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    The big sticking point for Brockman and Sutskever was control.

    They didn’t want Musk — or anyone — to have control over OpenAI. “You and I can argue that’s stupid all we want but they are holding firm on it,” Zilis says in an email to Jared Birchall in September 2017.

    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Elizabeth Lopatto
    Sam Altman loves exclamation marks.

    That’s what I’ve learned from his emails. Me too, Sam!