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thewayneFriday there was some seismic activity at OpenAI: the Board staged a coup and ousted the founder and CEO Sam Altman! Departing with him was the President of the company and three top scientists! Other departures are expected.
OpenAI has a curious corporate structure. Overall, the company is a non-profit doing research into artificial intelligence. It controls a for-profit company that sells access to ChatGPT 4 and controls free access to ChatGPT 3.5. Microsoft is a large minority owner in the organization and lost 16% of its value in trading after the event, its stock value has since recovered. It was also blindsided by what happened.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/11/report-sutskever-led-board-coup-at-openai-that-ousted-altman-over-ai-safety-concerns/
The Verge reports that investors are pushing for Altman to return to OpenAI, but that he is ambivalent on the issue and may well have a new AI startup appearing on the scene on Monday, he has expressed an interest in designing new AI computer chips that will speed up the creation of the giant data sets that are required for AI. Guaranteed he'll have no problems finding investors or AI/data scientists willing to follow him.
The problem with designing new chips for AI, of course, is that it is a multi-year endeavor. While the institutional investors backing him would understand this, a lot of the general public would not.
From the Verge article: "OpenAI’s current board consists of chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, former GeoSim Systems CEO Tasha McCauley, and Helen Toner, the director of strategy at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. Unlike traditional companies, the board isn’t tasked with maximizing shareholder value, and none of them hold equity in OpenAI. Instead, their stated mission is to ensure the creation of “broadly beneficial” artificial general intelligence, or AGI.
Sutskever, who also co-founded OpenAI and leads its researchers, was instrumental in the ousting of Altman this week, according to multiple sources. His role in the coup suggests a power struggle between the research and product sides of the company, the sources say."
The article also mentions that ChatGPT 5 is in development.
I think one thing will eventuate: Sutskever's name is going to be mud in the long term. Altman may have left at some point, but it sounds like Sutskever has pretty much caused a top-talent exodus, and that's going to cause some really serious harm for the company.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/18/23967199/breaking-openai-board-in-discussions-with-sam-altman-to-return-as-ceo
https://slashdot.org/story/23/11/19/0055242/openai-investors-plot-last-minute-push-with-microsoft-to-reinstate-sam-altman-as-ceo
OpenAI has a curious corporate structure. Overall, the company is a non-profit doing research into artificial intelligence. It controls a for-profit company that sells access to ChatGPT 4 and controls free access to ChatGPT 3.5. Microsoft is a large minority owner in the organization and lost 16% of its value in trading after the event, its stock value has since recovered. It was also blindsided by what happened.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/11/report-sutskever-led-board-coup-at-openai-that-ousted-altman-over-ai-safety-concerns/
The Verge reports that investors are pushing for Altman to return to OpenAI, but that he is ambivalent on the issue and may well have a new AI startup appearing on the scene on Monday, he has expressed an interest in designing new AI computer chips that will speed up the creation of the giant data sets that are required for AI. Guaranteed he'll have no problems finding investors or AI/data scientists willing to follow him.
The problem with designing new chips for AI, of course, is that it is a multi-year endeavor. While the institutional investors backing him would understand this, a lot of the general public would not.
From the Verge article: "OpenAI’s current board consists of chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, former GeoSim Systems CEO Tasha McCauley, and Helen Toner, the director of strategy at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. Unlike traditional companies, the board isn’t tasked with maximizing shareholder value, and none of them hold equity in OpenAI. Instead, their stated mission is to ensure the creation of “broadly beneficial” artificial general intelligence, or AGI.
Sutskever, who also co-founded OpenAI and leads its researchers, was instrumental in the ousting of Altman this week, according to multiple sources. His role in the coup suggests a power struggle between the research and product sides of the company, the sources say."
The article also mentions that ChatGPT 5 is in development.
I think one thing will eventuate: Sutskever's name is going to be mud in the long term. Altman may have left at some point, but it sounds like Sutskever has pretty much caused a top-talent exodus, and that's going to cause some really serious harm for the company.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/18/23967199/breaking-openai-board-in-discussions-with-sam-altman-to-return-as-ceo
https://slashdot.org/story/23/11/19/0055242/openai-investors-plot-last-minute-push-with-microsoft-to-reinstate-sam-altman-as-ceo
no subject
Date: 2023-11-20 06:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-11-20 07:15 am (UTC)It is an inflection point in society. On the boon/bane scale, I'm thinking it's two parallel vertical bar graphs and they're both going up and down with some frequency right now. It'll be settling out slowly over time as it becomes more integrated into society as individuals adapt to using it. One thing is for sure - it's not going to go away, and pace of development is not going to slow down, there's too much money behind it for that to happen.
no subject
Date: 2023-11-20 07:01 am (UTC)Hugs, Jon
no subject
Date: 2023-11-20 07:16 am (UTC)Nobody plays nice when there's billions of money invested. Someone gets ticked off and it's "I'm going to take my toys and play somewhere else!"
no subject
Date: 2023-11-20 12:45 pm (UTC)