Just after 2 am Pacific time on Monday morning, several OpenAI staffers—including its chief technology officer, Mira Murati—posted in unison on X: “OpenAI is nothing without its people.” Sam Altman, who was dramatically removed as the company’s chief executive on Friday, reposted many of them. By then, Altman already had …
Read More »OpenAI Staff Threaten to Quit Unless Board Resigns
OpenAI was in open revolt on Monday with more than 730 employees signing an open letter threatening to leave unless the board resigns and reinstates Sam Altman as CEO, along with cofounder and former president Greg Brockman. Altman was controversially fired by the board on Friday. “The process through which …
Read More »Meet Emmett Shear, OpenAI’s ‘Highly Intelligent, Socially Awkward’ Interim CEO
After a weekend of chaos at OpenAI, the company’s board of directors appointed former Twitch boss Emmett Shear interim CEO late Sunday. It was just the latest in a string of tumultuous changes at the AI company following Friday’s ouster of CEO Sam Altman, and it left many wondering what …
Read More »How OpenAI’s Bizarre Structure Gave 4 People the Power to Fire Sam Altman
When Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and other investors formed the startup behind ChatGPT as a US not-for-profit organization in 2015, Altman told Vanity Fair he had very little experience with nonprofits. “So I’m just not sure how it’s going to go,” he said. He couldn’t have imagined the drama of …
Read More »What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI
Sam Altman always insisted that he wasn’t the most important person at OpenAI despite being its CEO. As he traveled the world this year meeting world leaders—the world’s unofficial ambassador of AI—Altman would soft-pedal his role, even as he stole glances at his phone to keep up with what was …
Read More »Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond
More details of Sam Altman’s sudden ousting as CEO of OpenAI have emerged, with several senior researchers quitting the company, and executives and investors from across the industry expressing shock and confusion at what is increasingly being perceived as a board coup. Hours after Sam Altman was booted from the …
Read More »OpenAI Ousts CEO Sam Altman
Sam Altman, who as CEO of OpenAI gave the world ChatGPT and became one of the most influential people in technology, has departed the company after losing the confidence of its board. Altman, who had been at the company since cofounding it in 2015, was told he was fired by …
Read More »The Case for Using AI to Log Your Every Living Moment
People know Otter.ai as one of the AI-driven transcription services that have popped up over the past few years, automatically converting spoken words in interviews and meetings into text. The service can even distinguish between individual speakers. But its CEO, Sam Liang, sees this handy functionality as just a beachhead …
Read More »Google DeepMind’s AI Pop Star Clone Will Freak You Out
Even if you didn’t watch last weekend’s episode of Saturday Night Live, you still probably saw it. You may already even know what “it” I’m talking about: Timothée Chalamet, and other similarly-dressed cast members, booty-shaking in tiny little red undies. He was, the sketch goes, “an Australian YouTube twink turned …
Read More »Who Is Mira Murati, OpenAI’s New Interim CEO?
Until the dramatic departure of OpenAI’s cofounder and CEO Sam Altman on Friday, Mira Murati was its chief technology officer—but you could also call her its minister of truth. In addition to heading the teams that develop tools such as ChatGPT and Dall-E, it’s been her job to make sure …
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