It was a wild weekend at OpenAI, the company behind the successful AI chatbot ChatGPT. On Friday, director and co-founder Sam Altman was fired. After a chaotic weekend, Altman is now going to work at Microsoft. But how does OpenAI proceed?
Er klonken vrijdag harde woorden in het bericht waarmee OpenAI het vertrek van Altman aankondigde. “Het bestuur heeft geen vertrouwen meer in zijn kunde om OpenAI te blijven leiden.” Een onderzoek zou uitwijzen dat Altman niet consequent open was in zijn overleg met het bestuur. “Dat belemmerde het bestuur om zijn werk te doen”, zo leest de verklaring. Verdere details bleven uit.
Altman kwam na de publieke aankondiging van OpenAI zelf met een korte reactie op X, waarin hij zegt er met plezier te hebben gewerkt. “Hopelijk heeft het bedrijf de wereld een beetje veranderd”, schrijft hij.
Niet veel later verscheen een bericht van OpenAI-medeoprichter Greg Brockman. Hij schrijft daarin dat hij en Altman geschokt zijn door de gebeurtenissen. Allebei zeggen ze niet precies te weten wat er is gebeurd.
Brockman vertrok na Altman ook
“Wat we wel weten, is dat Sam vrijdag een bericht kreeg om een Google Meet bij te wonen”, schrijft Brockman. In de vergadering trof Altman het hele bestuur behalve Brockman. In het gesprek hoorde hij dat hij bij OpenAI moest vertrekken en dat zijn ontslag snel wereldkundig zou worden gemaakt.
Niet veel later werd ook Brockman uitgenodigd voor een videovergadering. Daarin werd hij uit het bestuur gezet. Brockman kon volgens het bestuur wel bij OpenAI blijven werken. Daarop besloot Brockman zelf zijn biezen te pakken. “Naar aanleiding van het nieuws van vandaag stop ik ermee”, schrijft hij in een bericht aan OpenAI-medewerkers.
Just talk about a possible return
The major shifts within OpenAI hit the tech world like a bombshell. Altman himself would not have seen the dismissal coming either. Last week he attended conferences and gave presentations as director of OpenAI.
There was a commotion among employees and investors. Some of the staff threatened to resign after Altman’s departure. Investors then pressured the board to allow Altman to return to the company. Something Altman himself was reportedly open to. But the deadline for that passed on Saturday.
Altman appeared again at the OpenAI office on Sunday. He shared a photo of himself with a guest pass. “First and last time I wear this,” he wrote in a cryptic message that could have gone either way. Either he would return as director or he would never step foot in the building again.
Altman and Brockman leave for Microsoft
The latter turned out to be closest to the truth. Monday morning Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that he had hired Altman and Brockman. They will be in charge of a new team at Microsoft that focuses on research into artificial intelligence.
In the meantime, OpenAI has also appointed a new director. That’s Emmett Shear, co-founder of Twitch. This streaming service mainly shows people playing games. Shear left his company in March. According to him, after sixteen years the time was ripe. He had also just had a son. “I want to be there for him completely.” Shear’s appointment at OpenAI is striking, because he has no experience in the AI field.
But Altman and Brockman’s move to Microsoft is also a very striking one. Microsoft is the largest investor in OpenAI. The company has already pumped billions of dollars into it. And the collaboration remains intact, Microsoft CEO Nadella wrote on Monday.
Many OpenAI employees responded to the chaos within the company on social media on Monday. They post on X: “OpenAI is nothing without its people”. Also the appointed interim director Mira Murati writes that.
Altman gets plenty of room
“The mission continues”, reports Altman after announcing his appointment at X. He may be referring to his mission at OpenAI “to develop artificial intelligence that advances humanity.”
In his response to the message, Nadella hinted at how he envisions Altman’s future at Microsoft. “We’ve learned a lot over the years about how to give founders and innovators the space to build independent identities and cultures within Microsoft,” he writes. “Just look at GitHub, Mojang Studios and LinkedIn. I look forward to seeing you do the same.”
The third co-founder of OpenAI and member of the board, Ilya Sutskever, said on Monday that she regretted the course of events. “It was never my intention to harm OpenAI. I care about everything we’ve built together and will do everything I can to bring the company back together.”
Microsoft has room for switchers
To make matters worse, they signed according to Wired Nearly five hundred OpenAI employees received a letter on Monday threatening to resign if the remaining board does not resign. In the letter they write that Microsoft has promised them that there are enough vacancies in the new AI team. Remarkably, the letter is also signed by Sutskever.
Microsoft announced its own AI chip a week ago. This can be used to train large language models for artificial intelligence. Altman previously worked with OpenAI to refine and test this Maia AI chip.
OpenAI put itself on the map a year ago with the arrival of ChatGPT and has since become an indispensable part of the tech industry. The chatbot is one of the fastest growing services ever. Altman announced earlier this month that ChatGPT attracts more than 100 million weekly users.
The post first appeared on www.nu.nl