OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, announced Tuesday that Sam Altman will be returning as CEO, days after his surprise firing plunged the pioneering artificial intelligence company into crisis.
Altman’s dramatic departure on Friday sparked intense lobbying for his return from OpenAI’s biggest investors, including tech giant Microsoft.
Amid speculation about OpenAI’s future, hundreds of OpenAI staff members have threatened to resign and called for board members to resign in a letter released to the media.
OpenAI told X: “We have reached a basic agreement that Sam Altman will return to OpenAI as CEO, and that Brett Taylor (chairman), Larry Summers, and Adam D’Angelo will form a new initial board of directors.” ” he wrote.
“We are working together to figure out the details.”
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced this week that the company is hiring Altman to lead its AI research team.
Mr. Altman said Tuesday that he had Mr. Nadella’s support for his return.
Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and is building the technology into a variety of products, including its search engine Bing.
Its data center was critical to the development of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, whose success sparked a multibillion-dollar global race in AI research and development.
Nadella said “governance changes” were needed at OpenAI to avoid such disruptive surprises.
“We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI Board of Directors,” Microsoft’s CEO said on Tuesday.
“We believe this is an important first step on the path to more stable, informed and effective governance.”
The announcement appears to bring an end to the roller-coaster ride sparked by Altman’s firing last week.
On Sunday, OpenAI’s board of directors, which includes widely respected AI researcher and company co-founder Ilya Sutskeva, upheld the decision to fire Altman and appointed Emmet Shea as interim CEO.
But that did little to quell internal anger or concerns among OpenAI investors.
Sutskever was one of the signatories of a letter from OpenAI employees calling for the board to be removed.
“I deeply regret participating in the board’s actions,” he wrote on Monday’s X. “I had no intention of harming OpenAI.”
Generative AI platforms like ChatGPT are trained on vast amounts of data and can answer even complex questions in human-like language.
It is also used to generate and manipulate images.
But the technology has raised warnings about the dangers of its misuse, from blackmailing people with “deepfake” images to image manipulation and harmful disinformation.
Source: guardian.ng