Who owns ChatGPT? ChatGPT was created by OpenAI

We look at the creator and founders of ChatGPT, an astonishing invention

Shaun Conroy

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Since its earliest release back in late 2022 ChatGPT has taken the internet world by storm because of its ability to produce human-like responses to text-based prompts. Consequently there’s been a great deal of interest in the AI chatbot as well as the folks behind its creation. OpenAI is the organisation behind the groundbreaking software and it was founded in 2015 by several Silicon Valley big wigs, including Elon Musk, with the goal of promoting the development of AI for the betterment of humanity.

Since then OpenAI has entered into partnership with the tech company Microsoft. Back in 2019 Microsoft invested $1 billion into OpenAI in exchange for exclusive licensing of their technology. Recently Microsoft pledged a further $10 billion to the AI firm. This partnership has allowed Microsoft to launch their own AI chatbot Bing AI based upon OpenAI’s GPT-4 language model and go toe to toe with its major competitors, Google AI and DeepMind.

Microsoft is also utilizing OpenAI’s software within their ambitious Copilot project. Through Microsoft Copilot Microsoft aims to integrate AI functionality into its popular 365 suite of applications. Copilot is yet to be released to the general public.

Who owns ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is owned by OpenAI. OpenAI began life as a non-profit research organisation with one of its key philosophies being that it would “freely collaborate” with other researchers and research groups, as well as make its research and patents freely available to the public. Since then OpenAI has transitioned into a “capped” for-profit, principally in order to attract bigger investments to fund their research and to attract expert employees who would and will be crucial to the advancement of their research.

Is ChatGPT owned by Microsoft?

With the vast levels of investment from Microsoft, you’d be forgiven for assuming the tech giants owned ChatGPT, however, that is not the case if fact OpenAI owns ChatGPT. Microsoft is one of the well-known backers that is putting billions into the project and utilizing OpenAI’s software within their own programs.

Who owns OpenAI?

No individual owns OpenAI, it was originally a non-profit research organization governed by a board of directors. Since 2019 it is considered a “capped-profit” organization which is partly owned by its own employees. The board consists of Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, and Sam Altman alongside other non-employee members.

Who created ChatGPT?

OpenAI is the owner and developer of ChatGPT. On December 11, 2015, OpenAI was established by Sam Altman, former president of Y Combinator, and Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla. Other significant co-founders of OpenAI include: Peter Thiel, Jessica Livingstone, Greg Brockman, and Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn. These are some of the most prominent names in Silicon Valley. As of now, Sam Altman is still the CEO of OpenAI. OpenAI has also been backed by several high-profile investors, including YC Research, Amazon Web Services, Infosys, and Microsoft Corporation, which has pledged at least $13 billion in funding.

Despite Musk’s departure from the board in 2018 to prevent conflicts of interest with his other company Tesla, he remains a key contributor to OpenAI’s initiatives. ChatGPT is just one of many innovative products developed by the research team to advance AI’s capabilities, enabling it to perform tasks like correcting grammar, summarizing text, and even generating Python code. However, the use of ChatGPT for academic purposes has raised concerns about ethics of using AI in an academic context. To combat this issue, OpenAI has developed its own AI text classifier and detector tools like GPTZero & GPT2 detector to help prevent misuse of their technology.

The company acknowledges that the computing costs are high. Monetizing the platform is a possibility, but OpenAI has emphasized the need to do so carefully while making sure the technology continues to benefit society.

Elon Musk’s departure from OpenAI

Elon Musk, one of the co-founders of OpenAI, stepped down from the company’s Board of Directors in 2018. He cited his departure on Twitter, stating that he needed to focus on resolving engineering and manufacturing challenges at Tesla and SpaceX. Additionally, he disagreed with some of the plans proposed by the OpenAI team. While there were several reasons for his departure, it’s likely that Musk’s commitment to Tesla and a different vision for OpenAI’s future were the primary reasons.