The Irish Times view on Elon Musk vs OpenAI: unsettling insights into the future
It was billed as the AI trial of the century, but Monday’s decision by a California court to dismiss Elon Musk’s case against OpenAI did not really settle anything. Musk’s allegation that chief executive Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman had fraudulently transformed the company from a charity committed to developing artificial intelligence safely and for the public good into a for-profit enterprise from which both had enriched themselves was rejected not on its merits but because it fell outside the statute of limitations. Musk has said he will appeal, but OpenAI is now free to continue its breakneck growth plan, including a proposed IPO that could value the company at close to a trillion dollars.None of the protagonists emerged from the trial with their reputations enhanced. Musk’s claim to be acting on behalf of humanity against the greed and recklessness of Silicon Valley is unlikely to persuade those who have followed his activities closely. Evidence revealed that he had sought to fold OpenAI into his own company, Tesla. Altman, who was described by his own board as not being consistently candid during a failed internal coup in 2023, has a well-established track record of telling people what they want to hear. His personal financial interests, it emerged during the trial, are more entangled with OpenAI than he had previously admitted.Nonetheless, the case may yet come to be seen as a landmark moment in the history of AI. Both sides were playing as much to the public gallery as to the judge and jury, and the accusations levelled in court, of recklessness, greed and wilful disregard for the potential dangers of the technology, will resonate with a public whose nervousness is rising.Whether it is young people watching the contraction of entry-level jobs, workers in administration, logistics and a host of other sectors being told their roles face automation, or communities resisting the apparently unchecked spread of data centres, all the ingredients for a serious political backlash are now visible.READ MORE‘Like a dirty little secret’: How is AI being used in Irish primary schools?Winners of the 2026 Irish Restaurant Awards revealed: The best restaurant, chef, newcomer and more‘A country with a lot of power and money wanted me to do a propaganda series’How to add The Irish Times as a preferred source on GoogleGeopolitically, the AI race sits at the heart of the rivalry between the US and China. The Trump administration’s approach has lurched from aggressive deregulation towards a partial and grudging re-engagement with safety concerns, driven less by principle than by mounting public anxiety.Less than four years after ChatGPT first brought the prospect of an AI-driven future out of the realm of science fiction and into everyday life, the drive to develop ever more powerful systems continues to accelerate, reshaping markets, deepening economic inequality, transforming military strategy and reordering international relations in new, unfamiliar ways. To paraphrase Leon Trotsky, you may not be interested in AI, but AI is interested in you.
