At the end of last week the opening of the project OpenAI was announced. It’s a nonprofit company with the purpose of conducting research in artificial intelligence for the benefit of all humanity, without the constraints caused by the need to obtain a financial gain. This isn’t yet another project which soon may fall into oblivion because it’s supported by funding for approximately one billion dollars and involves entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors.

In the presentation of the project OpenAI the history of the development of artificial intelligence is briefly recalled with its many surprises but results so far in many ways limited. There’s still a lot do to to create an artificial intelligence comparable to a human and according to the supporters of this new project it’s important that there’s an institution that ensures that the benefits go to all humanity.

For this reason, the OpenAI project is open source, which means that researchers who work with it are encouraged to publish their work and share their findings. Patents, if there will be any, will be shared with the world. The intention is to cooperate freely with other institutions and companies to develop new technologies related to artificial intelligence.

Elon Musk is one of the people who expressed concerns about the possible negative developments in artificial intelligence. In essence, his fear is that developments in this field will lead to a result such as Skynet, which in the Terminator saga decides to wipe out humanity. Consequently, it’s not surprising that he’s one of the founders of an initiative such as OpenAI.

Elon Musk will direct OpenAI along with Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator, a program of incubation for startups. The project already has a number of collaborators and abundant funds, it remains to be seen what will produce. In the presentation, there’s an explicit reference to deep learning but subsequent developments could be focused on other types of algorithms.

It’s not possible to evaluate such a project from its announcement. It’s certainly positive that this is an open project because it gives the certainty that the results can be really useful for anyone who wants to use. Perhaps Elon Musk’s fears are unfounded but the philosophy of OpenAI ensures transparency.