OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Resigns

[not2easy]

OpenAI, the folks who brought out ChatGPT, say their board has lost confidence in Mr. Altman's ability to lead the company:

The artificial intelligence company’s directors said he was not ‘consistently candid in his communications with the board’

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who has emerged as the face of the artificial intelligence revolution, was ousted Friday after the board said it had lost confidence in his ability to lead the company, which built the pioneering AI chatbot ChatGPT.

Now, their Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati will fill in as interim CEO while they seek a full time replacement.

Full article at Washington Post: [washingtonpost.com...]


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[edited by: not2easy at 3:03 am (utc) on Dec 1, 2023]

[engine]

Oh, interesting, thanks for that info. I've seen it many times when an innovator fails to be the leader of the company, especially when it grows. Google's founders brought in Eric Schmidt to run the business when the founders realised it was better in someone else's hands. I wish Mr Musk would realise that with Twitter.
It's a shock being sent through the industry, methinks.

[not2easy]

I read that it had a knock-on effect on MS stocks.

[phranque]

this weekend has been a crazy year in tech.

the Friday OpenAI news caused a 2+% drop in MSFT, which has $13B invested in OpenAI.
the president of OpenAI also "left" the company.
they both almost returned to OpenAI over the weekend.
in the meantime, the OpenAI board appointed the CTO as interim CEO, then appointed the ex-Twitch CEO as interim CEO.

and then Satya Nadella hired both (ex-OpenAI CEO & Pres) as well as a handful of other ex-OpenAI management to lead a new AI team at Microsoft.
i'm giving the win to Nadella.

[tangor]

Things change, particularly when the under ranks think they can do better than the founders...

Chuckle over the "lost confidence"---as if ChatGPT is all that sterling in the first place!

[phranque]

the CEO and President work for the Board of Directors, not vice versa.

[engine]

It's a soap opera!
We really don't know how this will pan out, and there's no way we can guess.

The future of ChatGPT is at risk.

[tangor]

The company is in revolt with 700 of the rank and file ready to follow Altman to MS! Meanwhile, several of the board have since changed their minds, expressing regret.

Good thing my popcorn machine keeps the pops warmed and the butter smooth and ready!

[phranque]

aaaaand...
he's back:
[twitter.com...]

along with (Pres) Brockman.

besides the >90% of employees threatening to leave, the (2nd) interim CEO threatened to resign if the board didn't explain their actions.

major changes to the board have been made which will soon expand to include MSFT representation.

[engine]

It's been a farce, imho.
I'm sure it won't be long before MS take over completely to help bring stability to the business.

[engine]

I read more about the reasons for this week's movements, and it seems, in part, there was a document describing a project codenames Q* warning the board of a "powerful artificial intelligence discovery"'

Some at OpenAI believe Q* (pronounced Q-Star) could be a breakthrough in the startup's search for what's known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), one of the people told Reuters. OpenAI defines AGI as autonomous systems that surpass humans in most economically valuable tasks.

[reuters.com...]

www.reuters.com OpenAI researchers warned board of AI breakthrough ahead of CEO ouster, sources say Ahead of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's four days in exile, several staff researchers wrote a letter to the board of directors warning of a powerful artificial intelligence discovery that they said could threaten humanity, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

[tangor]

Yeah, there was that, but there was also a concern among some of the coders that Altman was taking OpenAI into commercialization too soon (and not as a benefit to humanity). We live in interesting times!

Hard to achieve goals when the goal posts keep changing---

[Martin Potter]

into commercialization

Make money, no matter how.