Early 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. Over 500 out of 750 employees signed a letter demanding the resignation of the board of directors and the reinstatement of Sam Altman as CEO.
Related: The truth about Sam Altman’s dismissal, CEO of OpenAI and in charge of ChatGPT
Surprisingly, one of the signatories of the open letter was Ilya Sutskever, a board member who led the removal of Sam Altman. “I deeply regret my involvement in the board’s actions,” Sutskever said on Monday, adding that he never intended to harm OpenAI.
OpenAI is falling like a house of cards. Sam Altman’s dismissal seems to have been entirely counterproductive, at least for the company’s interests. On Sunday night, the OpenAI board hired Emmett Shear, co-founder and former CEO of Twitch, as the new CEO.
It has been a tumultuous weekend for the world’s leading artificial intelligence company. The OpenAI board, at least in part, dismissed Sam Altman due to disagreements over OpenAI’s for-profit division.
Sam Altman wanted to push progress further and faster than Sutskever felt comfortable with, clashing with OpenAI’s fundamental safety values.
Sutskever’s actions seem to be motivated by OpenAI’s ultimate goal: “to advance digital intelligence in a way that benefits humanity as a whole, unrestricted by the need for economic gain.”
The chaos this weekend is a good reminder that OpenAI is not a typical company but a nonprofit organization at its core.
Apparently, Sutskever was furious with Altman’s announcements on the November 6th DevDay to create a platform for customizable versions of ChatGPT, with GPTs and the GPT Store.
Microsoft has just acquired Silicon Valley’s hottest AI duo, Altman and Brockman, while maintaining its partnership with OpenAI. The future of OpenAI seems uncertain, and its efforts to develop general artificial intelligence could be in jeopardy. But everything is moving quickly.
