sam altman

After AI setbacks, Meta bets billions on undefined “superintelligence”

agi, AI, Alexander Wang, Biz & IT, chatbots, chatgpt, chatgtp, machine learning, mark zuckerberg, Meta, Meta AI, sam altman, Scale AI, superintelligence, Yann LeCun / 9u50fv / June 10, 2025

Meta has developed plans to create a new artificial intelligence research lab dedicated to pursuing “superintelligence,” according to reporting from The New York Times. The social media giant chose 28-year-old Alexandr Wang, founder and CEO of Scale AI, to join the new lab as part of a broader reorganization of Meta’s AI efforts under CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Superintelligence refers to a hypothetical AI system that would exceed human cognitive abilities—a step beyond artificial general intelligence (AGI), which aims to match an intelligent human’s capability for learning new tasks without intensive specialized training.

However, much like AGI, superintelligence remains a nebulous term in the field. Since scientists still poorly understand the mechanics of human intelligence, and because human intelligence resists simple quantification with no single definition, identifying superintelligence when it arrives will present significant challenges.

Computers already far surpass humans in certain forms of information processing such as calculations, but this narrow superiority doesn’t qualify as superintelligence under most definitions. The pursuit assumes we’ll recognize it when we see it, despite the conceptual fuzziness.

Illustration of studious robot reading a book

AI researcher Dr. Margaret Mitchell told Ars Technica in April 2024 that there will “likely never be agreement on comparisons between human and machine intelligence” but predicted that “men in positions of power and influence, particularly ones with investments in AI, will declare that AI is smarter than humans” regardless of the reality.

The new lab represents Meta’s effort to remain competitive in the increasingly crowded AI race, where tech giants continue pouring billions into research and talent acquisition. Meta has reportedly offered compensation packages worth seven to nine figures to dozens of researchers from companies like OpenAI and Google, according to The New York Times, with some already agreeing to join the company.

Meta joins a growing list of tech giants making bold claims about advanced AI development. In January, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a blog post that “we are now confident we know how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood it.” Earlier, in September 2024, Altman predicted that the AI industry might develop superintelligence “in a few thousand days.” Elon Musk made an even more aggressive prediction in April 2024, saying that AI would be “smarter than the smartest human” by “next year, within two years.”

After AI setbacks, Meta bets billions on undefined “superintelligence” Read More »

Fidji Simo joins OpenAI as new CEO of Applications

AI, Biz & IT, chatgpt, chatgtp, Fidji Simo, machine learning, openai, OpenAI board, sam altman / Beth Washington / May 10, 2025

In the message, Altman described Simo as bringing “a rare blend of leadership, product and operational expertise” and expressed that her addition to the team makes him “even more optimistic about our future as we continue advancing toward becoming the superintelligence company.”

Simo becomes the newest high-profile female executive at OpenAI following the departure of Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati in September. Murati, who had been with the company since 2018 and helped launch ChatGPT, left alongside two other senior leaders and founded Thinking Machines Lab in February.

OpenAI’s evolving structure

The leadership addition comes as OpenAI continues to evolve beyond its origins as a research lab. In his announcement, Altman described how the company now operates in three distinct areas: as a research lab focused on artificial general intelligence (AGI), as a “global product company serving hundreds of millions of users,” and as an “infrastructure company” building systems that advance research and deliver AI tools “at unprecedented scale.”

Altman mentioned that as CEO of OpenAI, he will “continue to directly oversee success across all pillars,” including Research, Compute, and Applications, while staying “closely involved with key company decisions.”

The announcement follows recent news that OpenAI abandoned its original plan to cede control of its nonprofit branch to a for-profit entity. The company began as a nonprofit research lab in 2015 before creating a for-profit subsidiary in 2019, maintaining its original mission “to ensure artificial general intelligence benefits everyone.”

Fidji Simo joins OpenAI as new CEO of Applications Read More »

The end of an AI that shocked the world: OpenAI retires GPT-4

AI, AI assistants, Biz & IT, chatgpt, chatgtp, GPT-4, large language models, machine learning, openai, sam altman / Shannon Garcia / April 30, 2025

One of the most influential—and by some counts, notorious—AI models yet released will soon fade into history. OpenAI announced on April 10 that GPT-4 will be “fully replaced” by GPT-4o in ChatGPT at the end of April, bringing a public-facing end to the model that accelerated a global AI race when it launched in March 2023.

“Effective April 30, 2025, GPT-4 will be retired from ChatGPT and fully replaced by GPT-4o,” OpenAI wrote in its April 10 changelog for ChatGPT. While ChatGPT users will no longer be able to chat with the older AI model, the company added that “GPT-4 will still be available in the API,” providing some reassurance to developers who might still be using the older model for various tasks.

The retirement marks the end of an era that began on March 14, 2023, when GPT-4 demonstrated capabilities that shocked some observers: reportedly scoring at the 90th percentile on the Uniform Bar Exam, acing AP tests, and solving complex reasoning problems that stumped previous models. Its release created a wave of immense hype—and existential panic—about AI’s ability to imitate human communication and composition.

A screenshot of GPT-4's introduction to ChatGPT Plus customers from March 14, 2023. — A screenshot of GPT-4’s introduction to ChatGPT Plus customers from March 14, 2023. Credit: Benj Edwards / Ars Technica

While ChatGPT launched in November 2022 with GPT-3.5 under the hood, GPT-4 took AI language models to a new level of sophistication, and it was a massive undertaking to create. It combined data scraped from the vast corpus of human knowledge into a set of neural networks rumored to weigh in at a combined total of 1.76 trillion parameters, which are the numerical values that hold the data within the model.

Along the way, the model reportedly cost more than $100 million to train, according to comments by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and required vast computational resources to develop. Training the model may have involved over 20,000 high-end GPUs working in concert—an expense few organizations besides OpenAI and its primary backer, Microsoft, could afford.

Industry reactions, safety concerns, and regulatory responses

Curiously, GPT-4’s impact began before OpenAI’s official announcement. In February 2023, Microsoft integrated its own early version of the GPT-4 model into its Bing search engine, creating a chatbot that sparked controversy when it tried to convince Kevin Roose of The New York Times to leave his wife and when it “lost its mind” in response to an Ars Technica article.

The end of an AI that shocked the world: OpenAI retires GPT-4 Read More »

OpenAI continues naming chaos despite CEO acknowledging the habit

AI, AI assistants, API, Biz & IT, chatgpt, chatgtp, GPT-4, GPT-4.1, GPT-4.5, large language models, machine learning, sam altman / Beth Washington / April 15, 2025

On Monday, OpenAI announced the GPT-4.1 model family, its newest series of AI language models that brings a 1 million token context window to OpenAI for the first time and continues a long tradition of very confusing AI model names. Three confusing new names, in fact: GPT‑4.1, GPT‑4.1 mini, and GPT‑4.1 nano.

According to OpenAI, these models outperform GPT-4o in several key areas. But in an unusual move, GPT-4.1 will only be available through the developer API, not in the consumer ChatGPT interface where most people interact with OpenAI’s technology.

The 1 million token context window—essentially the amount of text the AI can process at once—allows these models to ingest roughly 3,000 pages of text in a single conversation. This puts OpenAI’s context windows on par with Google’s Gemini models, which have offered similar extended context capabilities for some time.

At the same time, the company announced it will retire the GPT-4.5 Preview model in the API—a temporary offering launched in February that one critic called a “lemon”—giving developers until July 2025 to switch to something else. However, it appears GPT-4.5 will stick around in ChatGPT for now.

So many names

If this sounds confusing, well, that’s because it is. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged OpenAI’s habit of terrible product names in February when discussing the roadmap toward the long-anticipated (and still theoretical) GPT-5.

“We realize how complicated our model and product offerings have gotten,” Altman wrote on X at the time, referencing a ChatGPT interface already crowded with choices like GPT-4o, various specialized GPT-4o versions, GPT-4o mini, the simulated reasoning o1-pro, o3-mini, and o3-mini-high models, and GPT-4. The stated goal for GPT-5 will be consolidation, a branding move to unify o-series models and GPT-series models.

So, how does launching another distinctly numbered model, GPT-4.1, fit into that grand unification plan? It’s hard to say. Altman foreshadowed this kind of ambiguity in March 2024, telling Lex Fridman the company had major releases coming but was unsure about names: “before we talk about a GPT-5-like model called that, or not called that, or a little bit worse or a little bit better than what you’d expect…”

OpenAI continues naming chaos despite CEO acknowledging the habit Read More »

OpenAI’s secret weapon against Nvidia dependence takes shape

AI, AI chips, Biz & IT, Broadcom, chatgpt, chatgtp, china, GPUs, machine learning, NVIDIA, openai, Reuters, Richard Ho, sam altman, Taiwan, TSMC, US government / 9u50fv / February 11, 2025

OpenAI is entering the final stages of designing its long-rumored AI processor with the aim of decreasing the company’s dependence on Nvidia hardware, according to a Reuters report released Monday. The ChatGPT creator plans to send its chip designs to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) for fabrication within the next few months, but the chip has not yet been formally announced.

The OpenAI chip’s full capabilities, technical details, and exact timeline are still unknown, but the company reportedly intends to iterate on the design and improve it over time, giving it leverage in negotiations with chip suppliers—and potentially granting the company future independence with a chip design it controls outright.

In the past, we’ve seen other tech companies, such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta, create their own AI acceleration chips for reasons that range from cost reduction to relieving shortages of AI chips supplied by Nvidia, which enjoys a near-market monopoly on high-powered GPUs (such as the Blackwell series) for data center use.

In October 2023, we covered a report about OpenAI’s intention to create its own AI accelerator chips for similar reasons, so OpenAI’s custom chip project has been in the works for some time. In early 2024, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also began spending considerable time traveling around the world trying to raise up to a reported $7 trillion to increase world chip fabrication capacity.

OpenAI’s secret weapon against Nvidia dependence takes shape Read More »

Anthropic chief says AI could surpass “almost all humans at almost everything” shortly after 2027

agi, AI, AI assistants, AI investment, Amazon, Anthropic, Anthropic Claude, chatgpt, Claude, Daniela Amodei, Dario Amodei, Davos, Google, machine learning, Meta, openai, sam altman, superintelligence, Wall Street Journal / Shannon Garcia / January 22, 2025

He then shared his concerns about how human-level AI models and robotics that are capable of replacing all human labor may require a complete re-think of how humans value both labor and themselves.

“We’ve recognized that we’ve reached the point as a technological civilization where the idea, there’s huge abundance and huge economic value, but the idea that the way to distribute that value is for humans to produce economic labor, and this is where they feel their sense of self worth,” he added. “Once that idea gets invalidated, we’re all going to have to sit down and figure it out.”

The eye-catching comments, similar to comments about AGI made recently by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, come as Anthropic negotiates a $2 billion funding round that would value the company at $60 billion. Amodei disclosed that Anthropic’s revenue multiplied tenfold in 2024.

Amodei distances himself from “AGI” term

Even with his dramatic predictions, Amodei distanced himself from a term for this advanced labor-replacing AI favored by Altman, “artificial general intelligence” (AGI), calling it in a separate CNBC interview from the same event in Switzerland a marketing term.

Instead, he prefers to describe future AI systems as a “country of geniuses in a data center,” he told CNBC. Amodei wrote in an October 2024 essay that such systems would need to be “smarter than a Nobel Prize winner across most relevant fields.”

On Monday, Google announced an additional $1 billion investment in Anthropic, bringing its total commitment to $3 billion. This follows Amazon’s $8 billion investment over the past 18 months. Amazon plans to integrate Claude models into future versions of its Alexa speaker.

Anthropic chief says AI could surpass “almost all humans at almost everything” shortly after 2027 Read More »

Trump announces $500B “Stargate” AI infrastructure project with AGI aims

agi, AI, AI datacenter, AI infrastructure, elon musk, Larry Ellison, machine learning, Masayoshi Son, MGX, microsoft, NVIDIA, openai, oracle, sam altman, SoftBank, Stargate, texas, UAE / Beth Washington / January 22, 2025

Video of the Stargate announcement conference at the White House.

Despite optimism from the companies involved, as CNN reports, past presidential investment announcements have yielded mixed results. In 2017, Trump and Foxconn unveiled plans for a $10 billion Wisconsin electronics factory promising 13,000 jobs. The project later scaled back to a $672 million investment with fewer than 1,500 positions. The facility now operates as a Microsoft AI data center.

The Stargate announcement wasn’t Trump’s only major AI move announced this week. It follows the newly inaugurated US president’s reversal of a 2023 Biden executive order on AI risk monitoring and regulation.

Altman speaks, Musk responds

On Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared at a White House press conference alongside Present Trump, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son to announce Stargate.

Altman said he thinks Stargate represents “the most important project of this era,” allowing AGI to emerge in the United States. He believes that future AI technology could create hundreds of thousands of jobs. “We wouldn’t be able to do this without you, Mr. President,” Altman added.

Responding to off-camera questions from Trump about AI’s potential to spur scientific development, Altman said he believes AI will accelerate the discoveries for cures of diseases like cancer and heart disease.

Screenshots of Elon Musk challenging the Stargate announcement on X.

Meanwhile on X, Trump ally and frequent Altman foe Elon Musk immediately attacked the Stargate plan, writing, “They don’t actually have the money,” and following up with a claim that we cannot yet substantiate, saying, “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”

Musk’s criticism has complex implications given his very close ties to Trump, his history of litigating against OpenAI (which he co-founded and later left), and his own goals with his xAI company.

Trump announces $500B “Stargate” AI infrastructure project with AGI aims Read More »

OpenAI defends for-profit shift as critical to sustain humanitarian mission

agi, Artificial Intelligence, elon musk, generative ai, non-profit, openai, Policy, sam altman, xAI / Mike M. / December 27, 2024

OpenAI has finally shared details about its plans to shake up its core business by shifting to a for-profit corporate structure.

On Thursday, OpenAI posted on its blog, confirming that in 2025, the existing for-profit arm will be transformed into a Delaware-based public benefit corporation (PBC). As a PBC, OpenAI would be required to balance its shareholders’ and stakeholders’ interests with the public benefit. To achieve that, OpenAI would offer “ordinary shares of stock” while using some profits to further its mission—”ensuring artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity”—to serve a social good.

To compensate for losing control over the for-profit, the nonprofit would have some shares in the PBC, but it’s currently unclear how many will be allotted. Independent financial advisors will help OpenAI reach a “fair valuation,” the blog said, while promising the new structure would “multiply” the donations that previously supported the nonprofit.

“Our plan would result in one of the best resourced nonprofits in history,” OpenAI said. (During its latest funding round, OpenAI was valued at $157 billion.)

OpenAI claimed the nonprofit’s mission would be more sustainable under the proposed changes, as the costs of AI innovation only continue to compound. The new structure would set the PBC up to control OpenAI’s operations and business while the nonprofit would “hire a leadership team and staff to pursue charitable initiatives in sectors such as health care, education, and science,” OpenAI said.

Some of OpenAI’s rivals, such as Anthropic and Elon Musk’s xAI, use a similar corporate structure, OpenAI noted.

Critics had previously pushed back on this plan, arguing that humanity may be better served if the nonprofit continues controlling the for-profit arm of OpenAI. But OpenAI argued that the old way made it hard for the Board “to directly consider the interests of those who would finance the mission and does not enable the non-profit to easily do more than control the for-profit.

OpenAI defends for-profit shift as critical to sustain humanitarian mission Read More »

OpenAI unveils easy voice assistant creation at 2024 developer event

AI, AI models, API, Biz & IT, chatgpt, chatgtp, DevDay, DevDay 2024, large language models, machine learning, openai, OpenAI DevDay, sam altman / Kelly Newman / October 1, 2024

Developers developers developers —

Altman steps back from the keynote limelight and lets four major API additions do the talking.

Benj Edwards – Oct 1, 2024 7: 16 pm UTC

Benj Edwards

On Monday, OpenAI kicked off its annual DevDay event in San Francisco, unveiling four major API updates for developers that integrate the company’s AI models into their products. Unlike last year’s single-location event featuring a keynote by CEO Sam Altman, DevDay 2024 is more than just one day, adopting a global approach with additional events planned for London on October 30 and Singapore on November 21.

The San Francisco event, which was invitation-only and closed to press, featured on-stage speakers going through technical presentations. Perhaps the most notable new API feature is the Realtime API, now in public beta, which supports speech-to-speech conversations using six preset voices and enables developers to build features very similar to ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode (AVM) into their applications.

OpenAI says that the Realtime API streamlines the process of creating voice assistants. Previously, developers had to use multiple models for speech recognition, text processing, and text-to-speech conversion. Now, they can handle the entire process with a single API call.

The company plans to add audio input and output capabilities to its Chat Completions API in the next few weeks, allowing developers to input text or audio and receive responses in either format.

Two new options for cheaper inference

OpenAI also announced two features that may help developers balance performance and cost when making AI applications. “Model distillation” offers a way for developers to fine-tune (customize) smaller, cheaper models like GPT-4o mini using outputs from more advanced models such as GPT-4o and o1-preview. This potentially allows developers to get more relevant and accurate outputs while running the cheaper model.

Also, OpenAI announced “prompt caching,” a feature similar to one introduced by Anthropic for its Claude API in August. It speeds up inference (the AI model generating outputs) by remembering frequently used prompts (input tokens). Along the way, the feature provides a 50 percent discount on input tokens and faster processing times by reusing recently seen input tokens.

And last but not least, the company expanded its fine-tuning capabilities to include images (what it calls “vision fine-tuning”), allowing developers to customize GPT-4o by feeding it both custom images and text. Basically, developers can teach the multimodal version of GPT-4o to visually recognize certain things. OpenAI says the new feature opens up possibilities for improved visual search functionality, more accurate object detection for autonomous vehicles, and possibly enhanced medical image analysis.

Where’s the Sam Altman keynote?

Enlarge / OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the OpenAI DevDay event on November 6, 2023, in San Francisco.

Getty Images

Unlike last year, DevDay isn’t being streamed live, though OpenAI plans to post content later on its YouTube channel. The event’s programming includes breakout sessions, community spotlights, and demos. But the biggest change since last year is the lack of a keynote appearance from the company’s CEO. This year, the keynote was handled by the OpenAI product team.

On last year’s inaugural DevDay, November 6, 2023, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman delivered a Steve Jobs-style live keynote to assembled developers, OpenAI employees, and the press. During his presentation, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made a surprise appearance, talking up the partnership between the companies.

Eleven days later, the OpenAI board fired Altman, triggering a week of turmoil that resulted in Altman’s return as CEO and a new board of directors. Just after the firing, Kara Swisher relayed insider sources that said Altman’s DevDay keynote and the introduction of the GPT store had been a precipitating factor in the firing (though not the key factor) due to some internal disagreements over the company’s more consumer-like direction since the launch of ChatGPT.

With that history in mind—and the focus on developers above all else for this event—perhaps the company decided it was best to let Altman step away from the keynote and let OpenAI’s technology become the key focus of the event instead of him. We are purely speculating on that point, but OpenAI has certainly experienced its share of drama over the past month, so it may have been a prudent decision.

Despite the lack of a keynote, Altman is present at Dev Day San Francisco today and is scheduled to do a closing “fireside chat” at the end (which has not yet happened as of this writing). Also, Altman made a statement about DevDay on X, noting that since last year’s DevDay, OpenAI had seen some dramatic changes (literally):

From last devday to this one:

*98% decrease in cost per token from GPT-4 to 4o mini

*50x increase in token volume across our systems

*excellent model intelligence progress

*(and a little bit of drama along the way)

In a follow-up tweet delivered in his trademark lowercase, Altman shared a forward-looking message that referenced the company’s quest for human-level AI, often called AGI: “excited to make even more progress from this devday to the next one,” he wrote. “the path to agi has never felt more clear.”

OpenAI unveils easy voice assistant creation at 2024 developer event Read More »

Apple backs out of backing OpenAI, report claims

AI, Apple, Jony Ive, microsoft, openai, sam altman, Tech / Shannon Garcia / September 30, 2024

ChatGPT —

Apple dropped out of the $6.5 billion investment round at the 11th hour.

Samuel Axon – Sep 30, 2024 6: 03 pm UTC

Enlarge / The Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California.

A few weeks back, it was reported that Apple was exploring investing in OpenAI, the company that makes ChatGPT, the GPT model, and other popular generative AI products. Now, a new report from The Wall Street Journal claims that Apple has abandoned those plans.

The article simply says Apple “fell out of the talks to join the round.” The round is expected to close in a week or so and may raise as much as $6.5 billion for the growing Silicon Valley company. Had Apple gone through with the move, it would have been a rare event—though not completely unprecedented—for Apple to invest in another company that size.

OpenAI is still expected to raise the funds it seeks from other sources. The report claims Microsoft is expected to invest around $1 billion in this round. Microsoft has already invested substantial sums in OpenAI, whose GPT models power Microsoft AI tools like Copilot and Bing chat.

Nvidia is also a likely major investor in this round.

Apple will soon offer limited ChatGPT integration in an upcoming iOS update, though it plans to support additional models like Google’s Gemini further down the line, offering users a choice similar to how they pick a default search engine or web browser.

OpenAI has been on a successful tear with its products and models, establishing itself as a leader in the rapidly growing industry. However, it has also been beset by drama and controversy—most recently, some key leaders at OpenAI departed the company abruptly, and it shifted its focus from a research-focused organization that was beholden to a nonprofit, to a for-profit company under CEO Sam Altman. Also, former Apple design lead Jony Ive is confirmed to be working on a new AI product of some kind.

But The Wall Street Journal did not specify which (if any) of these facts are reasons why Apple chose to back out of the investment.

Apple backs out of backing OpenAI, report claims Read More »

OpenAI’s Murati shocks with sudden departure announcement

AI, Biz & IT, greg brockman, Ilya Sutskever, machine learning, Mira Murati, openai, sam altman / Mike M. / September 25, 2024

thinning crowd —

OpenAI CTO’s resignation coincides with news about the company’s planned restructuring.

Benj Edwards – Sep 25, 2024 9: 34 pm UTC

Mira Murati, Chief Technology Officer of OpenAI, speaks during The Wall Street Journal's WSJ Tech Live Conference in Laguna Beach, California on October 17, 2023. — Enlarge / Mira Murati, Chief Technology Officer of OpenAI, speaks during The Wall Street Journal’s WSJ Tech Live Conference in Laguna Beach, California on October 17, 2023.

On Wednesday, OpenAI Chief Technical Officer Mira Murati announced she is leaving the company in a surprise resignation shared on the social network X. Murati joined OpenAI in 2018, serving for six-and-a-half years in various leadership roles, most recently as the CTO.

“After much reflection, I have made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI,” she wrote in a letter to the company’s staff. “While I’ll express my gratitude to many individuals in the coming days, I want to start by thanking Sam and Greg for their trust in me to lead the technical organization and for their support throughout the years,” she continued, referring to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman. “There’s never an ideal time to step away from a place one cherishes, yet this moment feels right.”

At OpenAI, Murati was in charge of overseeing the company’s technical strategy and product development, including the launch and improvement of DALL-E, Codex, Sora, and the ChatGPT platform, while also leading research and safety teams. In public appearances, Murati often spoke about ethical considerations in AI development.

Murati’s decision to leave the company comes when OpenAI finds itself at a major crossroads with a plan to alter its nonprofit structure. According to a Reuters report published today, OpenAI is working to reorganize its core business into a for-profit benefit corporation, removing control from its nonprofit board. The move, which would give CEO Sam Altman equity in the company for the first time, could potentially value OpenAI at $150 billion.

Murati stated her decision to leave was driven by a desire to “create the time and space to do my own exploration,” though she didn’t specify her future plans.

Proud of safety and research work

OpenAI CTO Mira Murati seen debuting GPT-4o during OpenAI's Spring Update livestream on May 13, 2024. — Enlarge / OpenAI CTO Mira Murati seen debuting GPT-4o during OpenAI’s Spring Update livestream on May 13, 2024.

OpenAI

In her departure announcement, Murati highlighted recent developments at OpenAI, including innovations in speech-to-speech technology and the release of OpenAI o1. She cited what she considers the company’s progress in safety research and the development of “more robust, aligned, and steerable” AI models.

Altman replied to Murati’s tweet directly, expressing gratitude for Murati’s contributions and her personal support during challenging times, likely referring to the tumultuous period in November 2023 when the OpenAI board of directors briefly fired Altman from the company.

“It’s hard to overstate how much Mira has meant to OpenAI, our mission, and to us all personally,” he wrote. “I feel tremendous gratitude towards her for what she has helped us build and accomplish, but I most of all feel personal gratitude towards her for the support and love during all the hard times. I am excited for what she’ll do next.”

Not the first major player to leave

Enlarge / An image Ilya Sutskever tweeted with this OpenAI resignation announcement. From left to right: OpenAI Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki, President Greg Brockman (on leave), Sutskever (now former Chief Scientist), CEO Sam Altman, and soon-to-be-former CTO Mira Murati.

With Murati’s exit, Altman remains one of the few long-standing senior leaders at OpenAI, which has seen significant shuffling in its upper ranks recently. In May 2024, former Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever left to form his own company, Safe Superintelligence, Inc. (SSI), focused on building AI systems that far surpass humans in logical capabilities. That came just six months after Sutskever’s involvement in the temporary removal of Altman as CEO.

John Schulman, an OpenAI co-founder, departed earlier in 2024 to join rival AI firm Anthropic, and in August, OpenAI President Greg Brockman announced he would be taking a temporary sabbatical until the end of the year.

The leadership shuffles have raised questions among critics about the internal dynamics at OpenAI under Altman and the state of OpenAI’s future research path, which has been aiming toward creating artificial general intelligence (AGI)—a hypothetical technology that could potentially perform human-level intellectual work.

“Question: why would key people leave an organization right before it was just about to develop AGI?” asked xAI developer Benjamin De Kraker in a post on X just after Murati’s announcement. “This is kind of like quitting NASA months before the moon landing,” he wrote in a reply. “Wouldn’t you wanna stick around and be part of it?”

Altman mentioned that more information about transition plans would be forthcoming, leaving questions about who will step into Murati’s role and how OpenAI will adapt to this latest leadership change as the company is poised to adopt a corporate structure that may consolidate more power directly under Altman. “We’ll say more about the transition plans soon, but for now, I want to take a moment to just feel thanks,” Altman wrote.

OpenAI’s Murati shocks with sudden departure announcement Read More »

Oprah’s upcoming AI television special sparks outrage among tech critics

ABC, AI, AI criticism, AI lawsuit, Bill Gates, Biz & IT, Brian Merchant, chatgpt, chatgtp, Dr. Margaret Mitchell, Ed Zitron, image synthesis, Karla Ortiz, large language models, machine learning, openai, Oprah Winfrey, sam altman / Mike M. / September 3, 2024

You get an AI, and You get an AI —

AI opponents say Gates, Altman, and others will guide Oprah through an AI “sales pitch.”

Benj Edwards – Sep 3, 2024 7: 59 pm UTC

Enlarge / An ABC handout promotional image for “AI and the Future of Us: An Oprah Winfrey Special.”

On Thursday, ABC announced an upcoming TV special titled, “AI and the Future of Us: An Oprah Winfrey Special.” The one-hour show, set to air on September 12, aims to explore AI’s impact on daily life and will feature interviews with figures in the tech industry, like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Bill Gates. Soon after the announcement, some AI critics began questioning the guest list and the framing of the show in general.

“Sure is nice of Oprah to host this extended sales pitch for the generative AI industry at a moment when its fortunes are flagging and the AI bubble is threatening to burst,” tweeted author Brian Merchant, who frequently criticizes generative AI technology in op-eds, social media, and through his “Blood in the Machine” AI newsletter.

“The way the experts who are not experts are presented as such 💀 what a train wreck,” replied artist Karla Ortiz, who is a plaintiff in a lawsuit against several AI companies. “There’s still PLENTY of time to get actual experts and have a better discussion on this because yikes.”

The trailer for Oprah’s upcoming TV special on AI.

On Friday, Ortiz created a lengthy viral thread on X that detailed her potential issues with the program, writing, “This event will be the first time many people will get info on Generative AI. However it is shaping up to be a misinformed marketing event starring vested interests (some who are under a litany of lawsuits) who ignore the harms GenAi inflicts on communities NOW.”

Critics of generative AI like Ortiz question the utility of the technology, its perceived environmental impact, and what they see as blatant copyright infringement. In training AI language models, tech companies like Meta, Anthropic, and OpenAI commonly use copyrighted material gathered without license or owner permission. OpenAI claims that the practice is “fair use.”

Oprah’s guests

According to ABC, the upcoming special will feature “some of the most important and powerful people in AI,” which appears to roughly translate to “famous and publicly visible people related to tech.” Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who stepped down as Microsoft CEO 24 years ago, will appear on the show to explore the “AI revolution coming in science, health, and education,” ABC says, and warn of “the once-in-a-century type of impact AI may have on the job market.”

As a guest representing ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, Sam Altman will explain “how AI works in layman’s terms” and discuss “the immense personal responsibility that must be borne by the executives of AI companies.” Karla Ortiz specifically criticized Altman in her thread by saying, “There are far more qualified individuals to speak on what GenAi models are than CEOs. Especially one CEO who recently said AI models will ‘solve all physics.’ That’s an absurd statement and not worthy of your audience.”

In a nod to present-day content creation, YouTube creator Marques Brownlee will appear on the show and reportedly walk Winfrey through “mind-blowing demonstrations of AI’s capabilities.”

Brownlee’s involvement received special attention from some critics online. “Marques Brownlee should be absolutely ashamed of himself,” tweeted PR consultant and frequent AI critic Ed Zitron, who frequently heaps scorn on generative AI in his own newsletter. “What a disgraceful thing to be associated with.”

Other guests include Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin from the Center for Humane Technology, who aim to highlight “emerging risks posed by powerful and superintelligent AI,” an existential risk topic that has its own critics. And FBI Director Christopher Wray will reveal “the terrifying ways criminals and foreign adversaries are using AI,” while author Marilynne Robinson will reflect on “AI’s threat to human values.”

Going only by the publicized guest list, it appears that Oprah does not plan to give voice to prominent non-doomer critics of AI. “This is really disappointing @Oprah and frankly a bit irresponsible to have a one-sided conversation on AI without informed counterarguments from those impacted,” tweeted TV producer Theo Priestley.

Others on the social media network shared similar criticism about a perceived lack of balance in the guest list, including Dr. Margaret Mitchell of Hugging Face. “It could be beneficial to have an AI Oprah follow-up discussion that responds to what happens in [the show] and unpacks generative AI in a more grounded way,” she said.

Oprah’s AI special will air on September 12 on ABC (and a day later on Hulu) in the US, and it will likely elicit further responses from the critics mentioned above. But perhaps that’s exactly how Oprah wants it: “It may fascinate you or scare you,” Winfrey said in a promotional video for the special. “Or, if you’re like me, it may do both. So let’s take a breath and find out more about it.”

Oprah’s upcoming AI television special sparks outrage among tech critics Read More »