The reason behind the dismissal of OpenAI’s CEO was, among other things, the fear of the development of artificial intelligence that threatens humanity, claim the sources of the Reuters news agency. According to the leakers, the company is not necessarily very far from this.
The CEO of artificial intelligence company OpenAI, Sam Altman, quickly returned to the management of the company after first being fired just a few days earlier. Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
Before the CEO of OpenAI by Sam Altman after last week’s temporary firings, some of the organization’s researchers wrote a letter to its government warning the government that OpenAI had made a breakthrough in creating an advanced artificial intelligence that could threaten humanity.
The letter and the AI algorithm it described played an important role in Altman’s firing, two people close to the matter said for Reuters.
According to Reuters sources, the letter was part of a larger list of problems with the government that led to the dismissal of the CEO. In addition, the board was concerned, among other things, about how Altman has led the initially non-profit organization in an even more commercial direction and promoted the development of commercial artificial intelligence products before its sanctions are known.
This commercialization has included, among other things, the release of the ChatGPT chatbot to the general public and extensive cooperation with OpenAI’s main investor, Microsoft.
Reuters did not obtain a copy of the letter, and the people who wrote it did not respond to a request for comment.
OpenAI also did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment. However, Reuters’ sources told it that when asked for comment by Reuters, a senior executive at OpenAI Mira Murati sent an internal memo to employees commenting on the letter and the existence of a project called Q* (pronounced “Q Star”).
OpenAI emphasized to Reuters that Murati – who served as the organization’s CEO from 17-20 November – had only told employees about the upcoming Reuters article and the allegations made in it, and had not commented on the veracity of the allegations.
According to Reuters, some at OpenAI believe Q* could be a breakthrough in the organization’s ultimate goal of developing artificial general intelligence (AGI).
According to OpenAI’s definition, general artificial intelligence is an autonomous system that outperforms humans in “the vast majority of tasks of economic value” – in other words, artificial intelligence like the one depicted in science fiction.
A new model developed by the Q* project could solve some mathematical problems if given enough resources, according to a Reuters source. Although the model was only able to calculate elementary school math, the researchers are very optimistic about its future, according to the source. Mathematics in particular is a weakness of the current generative language models, because they are unable to verify the correctness of the content they produce.
of The Information according to Altman had hinted at this breakthrough in comments he had made at the APEC CEO Summit the day before he was fired. At least that’s what various OpenAI employees believe.
After the news was published by Reuters The Verge says its own anonymous source denied the board received a letter like the one described, and that the organization’s progress in artificial intelligence development did not affect the board’s decision to fire Altman.
OpenAI’s board notified Altman of his dismissal on Friday, November 17. After a tumultuous weekend, it initially appeared that Altman would end up working for Microsoft, with about 700 of OpenAI’s roughly 770 employees threatening to follow him. Altman was reinstated as CEO on Tuesday, November 21, following the appointment of a new board.