“A winning team doesn’t change,” goes a saying often used in sports, and when a company is growing fantastically fast and tends to become super-powerful, you’d say there’s no point in changing its leadership and course. Well, Sam Altman was incredibly ousted from running the company that created ChatGPT. Why did this happen? Who was the “leader of the disaster”? Why is OpenAI a special company?

OpenAI, a company that was NOT created with the idea of ​​becoming a “tech” giant

It should be said from the outset that we cannot clearly know the reasons behind the OpenAI scandal because people have not come forward to say it publicly, as it is a sensitive and confidential matter. Some are guesswork, while others are pretty clear, like the fact that the board didn’t argue with Sam Altman about how the company should grow. Moreover, even though Altman was a member of the six-man steering “committee,” he could not resist being fired.

Few had heard of OpenAI until November 2022, when ChatGPT became a global phenomenon with over 100 million users. Technology enthusiasts and those who are particularly interested in the field of artificial intelligence knew about it.

• Theatrical coup: Sam Altman, the former head of OpenAI, is leaving for Microsoft

OpenAI was founded in 2015, and the idea was to become a non-profit research company, a “laboratory” that would try to create something called “superintelligence” or AGI (Artificial General Intelligence).

The concept of AGI refers to the level of development in the field of artificial intelligence, when a system is capable of performing any intellectual task that a human can perform.

When it was created eight years ago, the company did NOT aim for a commercial mega-success. People who believed in the company’s mission said they did NOT want OpenAI to become a tech giant like Google or Amazon. That says a lot about how different OpenAI is, because 99.9% of companies think about making as much profit as possible.

• The head of the company that developed ChatGPT wants to attract more money from Microsoft, to build a “superintelligence”

The company changed its vision and turned to profits thanks to Sam Altman, who in 2018 attracted a billion dollars in investment from Microsoft. With that kind of investment, it would be possible to hire the best AI engineers and build ChatGPT. Also, with the help of these funds, extremely good engineers were recruited in 2021 and 2022, some of them were persuaded to leave Google, where they were (already) paid “royally”.

OpenAI was valued at $29 billion shortly after ChatGPT’s launch, and was rumored to be valued at over $80 billion last month, especially given that new versions of ChatGPT are in the works.

OpenAI was a small company that became the world’s No. 1 developer of artificial intelligence products, and Altman became a celebrity invited to speak at the biggest technology conferences, but Altman’s success created tension on the board of directors, where Altman’s main opponent, Ilya Sutzkever, insisted. to have it removed.

• Why Google didn’t release a chatbot before ChatGPT

OpenAI’s board consists of six members, and four of them voted to fire Altman. The other two former board members were Sam Altman and a close associate who also left: Greg Brockman.

Ilya Sutzkever is one of the co-founders of OpenAI and believes that OpenAI technology can become dangerous and that Altman is taking too many risks by developing OpenAI on many “fronts”. Sutzkever’s position at OpenAI is Chief Scientist.

Weird management structure

OpenAI has an unusual governance structure that was adopted in 2019, when it also created a subsidiary to try to make a profit and through which investors can get back the money they put in, but there was a cap on how much they could get back. The idea was that a significant portion of the profits generated by the non-profit organization would go to the non-profit research organization.

The structure is designed so that a non-profit board can also make decisions about another subsidiary.

It was shocking how Altman, a respected figure in the industry, was ousted. Almost no one suspected that it would happen so quickly and that everything would be done in such an unscrupulous way. Even executives at Microsoft, the company that invested $13 billion in OpenAI, were clueless. But Microsoft knows that Altman is very experienced, so it announced on Monday that it has hired him to develop advanced AI products. The question is: If Microsoft hired Altman, would it want to invest in OpenAI, the company that fired him.

• The company that developed ChatGPT tripled its market value in six months

What happened at OpenAI is also being discussed in the “tops” of other companies in the field. We’re not saying that AI software can become so powerful that it can get out of control and “wipe” us off the face of the Earth, but that’s an argument that exists in many companies that develop AI products. companies want to make money.

Many people say that these AI products become dangerous if they are too complex and fall into the wrong hands. The widespread use of AI in many fields can lead to arbitrary decisions, the spread of misinformation and large job losses. Proponents of these theories say that AI programs should evolve, get better, but they also say that there should be limits to the promotion of commercial versions.

Revenge, fear, anger? A scandal with many questions

Speaking of OpenAI alone, it’s clear that Altman and several people on the board have been at loggerheads for months, and it’s safe to assume that the disagreements were related to the direction in which OpenAI is headed. Altman’s critics say that the planned commercial development of OpenAI is being carried out too quickly and recklessly, without considering the risks of mass production of very powerful artificial intelligence products.

Also important here was that Altman wanted OpenAI to stay ahead of much larger competing companies at all costs, and was eager to get a billion dollars in funding from Japan’s Softbank group.

Altman’s landing also shows the fact that the board of directors has not agreed on what the future of OpenAI should look like, and there is a lot of uncertainty in this chapter, at a time when it is important to make the right decision, since OpenAI has become famous and can attract super investment if will want and have a clear plan for the coming years.

Ilya Sutzkever and three other OpenAI board members supported Altman’s removal based on the philosophy that human-made artificial intelligence could one day destroy humanity. Today’s technology cannot destroy us, but those who believe in these theories fear that the danger is increasing as these apps and these chatbots become more and more powerful.

Sam Altman was hired by Microsoft on Monday, Satya Nadella, the company’s Redmond-based CEO, announced. Microsoft is the largest investor in the company behind ChatGPT, with more than $13 billion. Altman will lead a team at Microsoft that will build sophisticated AI products.

Sources: AFP, Reuters, Washington Post, CNN, New York Times, The Verge, Ars Technica.