From OpenAI To Closed Doors – The Weekend That Turned The Tech World Upside Down

**UPDATED** – Sacking, revolt, return: how crisis at OpenAI over Sam Altman unfolded (via The Guardian)

This was, potentially, the strangest week in AI.

OpenAI‘s board of directors abruptly fired CEO (and visionary) Sam Altman last Friday, leading co-founder Greg Brockman and dozens of other OpenAI staff to quit in protest.
By Sunday evening, Emmett Shear (ex Twitch) was appointed as the new interim CEO of OpenAI.
More details emerged, indicating the firing was because of increased tensions over the speed of AI development.

Has AGI been achieved?

That speculation ran rampant over the weekend, with many believing the moves were made in response to AGI (Artificial General Intelligence – when AI is truly autonomous/as smart as human beings) being achieved.
Following the late Sunday night news, chaos ensued as dozens of OpenAI staffers quit.
The next day close to every staff member (700 employees) signed a leader threatening to leave, if the board does not reinstate Altman.

The Microsoft Factor.

Microsoft has invested over ten billion dollars into OpenAI.
Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, got involved.
Nadella announced that Altman and Brockman will join Microsoft to create a “new advanced AI research team.”
He also invited every OpenAI team member to join him.

Some bigger questions to ponder:

• If the best staff leaves… and goes to Microsoft… how long will it take Microsoft to ramp up, and does this diminish the power of OpenAI?
• Might this move push clients of OpenAI to move to competitors (like Cohere, Anthropic, and Gemini)? Even Meta’s LLM, Google, X, Amazon, Apple… who isn’t competing in the AI race?
• Does this create a mini-vacuum and opening for someone else in the AI field?
• If OpenAI has achieved some level of AGI, what do we do with regulation?

This is what Elias Makos and I discussed on CJAD 800 AM. Listen in right here

https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1674390438

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