Sam Altman 2022 Email: OpenAI Planned Open-Source Model for Local Run

In an email dated October 1, 2022, disclosed during the Musk v. Altman case, Sam Altman told the OpenAI board that the company was discussing an open-source strategy and wanted to act quickly after the next board meeting. The specific plan was to create a language model with capabilities roughly equivalent to GPT-3, capable of running locally on consumer hardware, and release it publicly. Altman emphasized beating Stability or other companies to market. He believed this would deter other companies from releasing similar models and make it harder for new open-source projects to secure funding. For developers focused on local model deployment and teams tracking the open-source AI ecosystem, this disclosure reveals that OpenAI's early stance on open source was not entirely opposed but strategically competitive. If implemented, the plan could have reshaped model accessibility at the time, though it was ultimately not publicly executed.