As a cub reporter at The Wall Street Journal, I learned an important lesson: Anyone can threaten a lawsuit. Things get serious when people actually file them.
Still, Microsoft’s threats to sue OpenAI — scooped by the FT — signify an escalating fight that won’t end particularly well if the two sides can’t hash out a deal.
At issue is who’s allowed to sell OpenAI’s tokens and how. As it stands, Microsoft is the only cloud provider allowed to sell OpenAI’s model as an “API,” which is kind of like having the ability to order à la carte, rather than be forced to eat a family-style meal.
With massive demand for OpenAI models, the company also wants to sell through Amazon Web Services, and has, Microsoft alleges, tried to find loopholes to avoid its exclusivity agreement with Microsoft.
Microsoft has threatened to sue if necessary to stop that. But here’s the question everyone should be asking: Why is exclusivity so important to Microsoft? It could just as easily say to OpenAI, “If you want to sell API access through AWS, give us a cut.” It shows that, even in the age of AI, with a rapidly expanding pie, the tech giants are still thinking a lot about “lock-in.”
In other words, how can I make sure people have to use my service, even if they might otherwise choose a different one? This is a dangerous way of thinking: Tactics that worked in the pre-AI universe are being overwhelmed by the sheer force of rapid disruption that AI is causing.