Altman’s firing shows that the organization was aiming to align artificial superintelligence with humanity’s failure to align with the values of even its board members and leadership. Adding a for-profit element to the nonprofit project has transformed it into an AI powerhouse. Product launches were supposed to provide not only profits, but also opportunities to learn how to control better and develop useful artificial intelligence. It is now unclear whether current leadership believes this can be done without upsetting the project’s original promise to create artificial general intelligence safely.
Moratti faces the challenge of convincing OpenAI employees and supporters that it still has a viable philosophy for AI development. It must also feed the company’s hunger for money to run the expanding infrastructure behind projects like ChatGPT. While his slide was rosy, Altman’s was as well She is reportedly seeking billions Of the new investments, in a financing round that will be led by Thrive Capital. The company is undoubtedly less attractive to financiers than it was just 24 hours ago. (Joshua Kushner, CEO of Thrive, did not respond to an email.)
Additionally, anyone whose CEO nameplate includes an “interim” tag will face additional hurdles in whatever they do. The sooner OpenAI appoints a permanent leader, the better.
Starting over
Whoever is OpenAI’s new leader appears to be inheriting a fractured team whether he stands alongside the current leaders, Sutskever and Moratti, or the departing bosses, Altman and Brockman. One of the three researchers who reportedly resigned over the coup was director of research Jacob Paczucki Inventor of GPT-4– A huge loss, and we can expect more in the future.
OpenAI may now be at a severe disadvantage in the fierce race for AI talent. Top researchers are secured through multimillion-dollar pay packages, but for the most enthusiastic, money is a secondary consideration to the question of how powerful AI can be developed and deployed. If OpenAI is seen as a place full of palace intrigues that distract from determining how best to create and deploy the most important invention for humanity, the best talent will be reluctant to commit. Elite researchers might instead look to Anthropic, an AI developer started by former OpenAI employees in 2021 — or perhaps whatever new project Altman and Brockman start.
Altman’s path thus far has been a classic hero’s journey in the Joseph Campbell sense. From the first moment I met him, when he came to my house Newsweek When he took over as CEO of a startup called Loopt in 2007, he demonstrated an intense passion for tackling technology’s biggest challenges but also incredible personal humility. When I accompanied him in London this year during his whirlwind tour to promote “human-positive” AI — yet also recommend organizing it to prevent disasters — I saw him address crowds, take selfies, and even engage some protesters to listen out of their fears. But I also felt that the task was exhausting, and might have caused him to have one of his periodic migraines, like the ones he fought when he testified before the Senate.
And just last week, Altman seemed to have mastered the enormous challenges that came with his new power and prominence. in OpenAI Developer Day On November 6, he was confident and meticulously rehearsed as he introduced a slew of new products, claiming his place at the top of the tech world’s peacock: a showman unveiling mind-boggling advances in the style of Steve Jobs. It seemed that Altman finally felt at home in the spotlight. But then the lights went out. Sam Altman will have to create AGI elsewhere. OpenAI may still be in the chase, but only after it picks up the pieces.
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