- OpenAI witnessed the sudden termination of Sam Altman on Friday.
- Following his departure, The Information reported that three senior researchers at the organization stepped down.
- At an all-party meeting, other employees reportedly raised concerns about the board’s decision.
Loading Something is loading.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Thanks for signing up!
Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed when you’re on the go. download app
The Information, citing multiple individuals familiar with the situation, reported that three senior researchers have resigned from OpenAI post the dismissal of CEO Sam Altman.
OpenAI co-founder Altman, who established the company in 2015, was informed about his termination during a video call with the company’s board on Friday.
In a statement addressing the decision, OpenAI expressed a lack of “confidence” in Altman’s leadership abilities and mentioned that he was “not consistently forthright in his communications.”
Following the news, OpenAI colleagues were informed that Jakub Pachocki, the research director, along with Alexander Madry, the head of the AI risk analysis team, and Szymon Sidor, a researcher with a seven-year tenure, have all left the organization, as per The Information.
Earlier this year, Altman recognized Pachocki for his role in creating GPT-4 in a post.
GPT-4 was truly a team effort of our entire company, but Jacob Pachocki’s overall leadership and technical approach to the pretraining effort was remarkable and we would not be here without it.
– Sam Altman (@sama) 14 March 2023
Additionally, OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman announced his resignation following the revelation.
Brockman conveyed this decision in a Post.
Subsequently, Brockman provided a concise This time detailing Altman’s dismissal and the involvement of Ilya Sutskever, another co-founder and the chief scientist of the company.
“Last night, Sam got a message from Ilya asking to talk on Friday at noon. Sam attended a Google Meet and the entire board was there except Greg. Ilya told Sam that he was about to be fired. And this news is coming out very soon,” he wrote.
Sutskever reportedly made efforts to reassure employees amidst the tumult.
During an all-hands meeting following Altman’s departure, Sutskever addressed staff concerns about the termination, with The Information obtaining a transcript of the meeting.
“I can understand why you chose that term, but I disagree with it. This board was doing its duty to the mission of the non-profit, which is to ensure that OpenAI builds AGI that benefits all of humanity,” Sutskever commented.
OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever speaks with the company’s CEO Sam Altman. Jack Guez/Getty Images
Another employee raised the question of whether one of the world’s most crucial companies should be influenced through a “backroom takedown,” to which Sutskever concurred that this was “not ideal.”
Under Altman’s leadership, OpenAI introduced the innovative AI chatbot ChatGPT and secured a $10 billion investment from Microsoft.
The company had revealed this just last week The most up-to-date version of ChatGPT At his first developer conference.
Source: www.businessinsider.com
