Early on Monday morning, Microsoft
hired Sam Altman to lead a new advanced AI research team after he
was ousted from his position at OpenAI last week. Within hours,
OpenAI employees threatened to resign en masse with more than 500
out of 750 employees signing a letter[1]
demanding that the board resign and Altman be reinstated as
CEO.
Shockingly, one of the signatories of the open letter was board member Ilya Sutskever who led the ousting of Sam Altman. “I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions,” said Sutskever[2] on Monday, going on to say he never intended to harm OpenAI. “I love everything we’ve built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company.” The remaining board members include non-employees Adam D’Angelo, Tasha McCauley, and Helen Toner.
OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman will join Altman at the new Microsoft AI venture. The ousting of Sam Altman seems to have completely backfired. On Sunday night, OpenAI’s board hired Emmett Shear[3], co-founder and former CEO of Twitch, as the new CEO.
It was a tumultuous weekend for the world’s leading artificial intelligence company. According to Bloomberg[4], OpenAI’s board, at least in part, fired Sam Altman over disagreements around the profit-seeking division of OpenAI. Altman wanted to push progress farther and faster than Sutskever was comfortable with, clashing with safety values core to OpenAI.
Sutskever actions seem to be
motivated by OpenAI’s ultimate goal[5]: “to advance digital
intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as
a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.”
This weekend’s chaos is a good reminder that OpenAI is not a normal
company, but a non-profit at its core. Here’s what its unusual
organization chart looks like:
Sutskever was reportedly furious[6]
with Altman’s DevDay announcements on Nov. 6th to create a consumer
platform of customizable versions of ChatGPT, with GPTs and the GPT
Store. Autonomous agents like GPTs, have raised safety concerns
across the AI community, and Sutskever viewed this as out of line
with OpenAI’s core values.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said
in a tweet[7]
that his company is looking forward to “getting to know Emmett
Shear and OAI’s new leadership team and working with them.” The
world is also quickly getting to know Shear better as well, and old
tweets about his views on AI have surfaced. Shear’s views appear to
align with OpenAI’s mission statement, calling for slow progress on
AI.
“I am actually in favor of a pause,”
said Shear in a September tweet[8]
about building generative AI. “Or rather, I’m in favor of a
slowdown. We can’t learn how to build a safe AI without
experimenting, and we can’t experiment without progress, but we
probably shouldn’t be barreling ahead at max speed either.”
Microsoft just acquired the hottest
AI duo in Silicon Valley, Altman and Brockman, while also
maintaining its OpenAI partnership. The future of OpenAI seems
uncertain, and its efforts to develop artificial general
intelligence could be in jeopardy. But everything is moving
fast.
The new Microsoft AI team has a
chance to scoop up defecting talent from OpenAI, as well. It’s
unclear if this team will pursue AGI as well. Nadella promised to
move “quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their
success.” Altman quoted[9]
Nadella’s tweet, “The mission continues.”
