Source: AFP
An OpenAI team dedicated to mitigating the long-term risks of super-intelligent computing was without a leader on Friday after two senior figures left the company.
OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and “superalignment” team co-leader Jan Leike announced their departure from the ChatGPT-maker this week, and US media reported that the remaining members of the group either left or were reassigned to other parts of San Francisco – registered company.
The apparent dismantling of an OpenAI group focused on keeping advanced artificial intelligence under control comes as such technology comes under increased scrutiny from regulators and fears intensify about its risks.
“OpenAI must become a security-first AGI (artificial general intelligence) company,” Leike wrote Friday in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Leike called on all OpenAI employees to “act with the gravity” that warrants what they build.
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded to Leike’s post with one of his own, thanking him for his work at the company and saying he was sorry to see Leike go.
“He’s right, we still have a lot to do,” Altman said. “We are committed to doing it.”
Altman promised more on the matter in the coming days.
Sutskever told X that he was leaving after nearly a decade at OpenAI, whose “trajectory has been nothing short of miraculous.”
“I am confident that OpenAI will create AGI that is both safe and beneficial,” he added, referring to computer technology that seeks to perform as well as or better than human cognition.
Sutskever, OpenAI’s chief scientist, was on the board that voted to remove fellow CEO Altman in November of last year.
The ouster threw the San Francisco-based startup into turmoil, with OpenAI’s board rehiring Altman days later after staff and investors revolted.
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OpenAI earlier this week released a higher-performing, even more human-like version of the AI technology that underpins ChatGPT, making it free for all users.
“It feels like an AI from the movies,” Altman said in a blog post.
Altman previously pointed to Scarlett Johansson’s character in the film “Her,” where she voices an AI-based virtual assistant dating a man, as an inspiration for where she’d like AI interactions to go.
The day will come when “digital brains will become as good and even better than ours,” Sutskever said during a talk at a TED AI summit in San Francisco late last year.
“AGI will have a dramatic impact on every area of life.”
Source: AFP