Microsoft hires OpenAI co-founders to lead advanced AI research team
Microsoft has announced that it has hired two of the co-founders of OpenAI, a research organization dedicated to creating artificial intelligence that can match or surpass human capabilities, to lead its new advanced AI research team.
Ilya Sutskever and Greg Brockman will join Microsoft as corporate vice presidents and report directly to Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott. They will oversee a team of researchers and engineers working on cutting-edge artificial intelligence projects such as natural language processing, computer vision, reinforcement learning, and generative models.
Sutskever and Brockman are among the most respected and influential figures in the field of AI. They co-founded OpenAI in 2015 with the vision of creating artificial general intelligence (AGI), a hypothetical form of AI that can perform any intellectual task that a human can perform. They also led the development of some of the most impressive artificial intelligence systems in recent years, such as GPT-3, a massive language model that can generate coherent and diverse texts on almost any topic.
Microsoft has been collaborating with OpenAI since 2019, when it invested $3 billion in the organization and became its exclusive cloud provider. Microsoft also helped OpenAI build and host its Azure supercomputer, one of the most powerful machines in the world, which is used to train large-scale AI models like GPT-XNUMX.
By hiring Sutskever and Brockman, Microsoft is signaling its commitment to advancing the state of the art in AI and competing with other tech giants like Google, Facebook and Amazon. Microsoft hopes that by combining its own experience and resources with the talent and vision of OpenAI's co-founders, it will be able to create AI solutions that can benefit society and empower its customers and partners.
"We are delighted to welcome Ilya and Greg to Microsoft," Scott said in a press release. “Both are brilliant and innovative leaders who have pushed the boundaries of AI research and development. "We look forward to working with them and their team to create AI technologies that can solve some of the world's most challenging problems."
In a surprising move, OpenAI co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman announced today that they are leaving the AI research organization to join Microsoft as leaders of a new advanced AI research team. The news was confirmed by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on X, who welcomed Altman and Brockman to the company and praised their vision and achievements in the field of artificial intelligence.
Brockman also shared the news on X, saying, "We're going to build something new and it's going to be amazing." He revealed that some of his former colleagues at OpenAI will be joining him and Altman at Microsoft, including Jacob Pachoki, Szymon Sidor and Aleksander Madry, all experts in various aspects of AI research.
The departure of Altman and Brockman leaves OpenAI with a leadership void, which will be temporarily filled by Emmett Shear, former CEO of Twitch, who has been named interim CEO. Shear is also a member of OpenAI's board of directors and has been involved in its operations since its inception. According to Reuters, Shear will oversee OpenAI's transition to a new leadership team and continue to support its mission and vision.
Nadella also reaffirmed Microsoft's commitment to partnering with OpenAI and supporting its research projects. She said: "We look forward to meeting Emmett Shear and the new OAI leadership team and working with them." She added that Microsoft and OpenAI share the common goal of creating beneficial and trustworthy AI systems that can empower humanity and solve global challenges.
The decision by OpenAI's board of directors to fire Sam Altman, CEO of the artificial intelligence research company, sparked a wave of protests and resignations from staff and investors, including Microsoft. The board, made up of prominent figures such as Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel, cited "irreconcilable differences" with Altman's vision and leadership style as the reason for his dismissal.
However, the board's action backfired as many Altman employees and supporters expressed their outrage and disappointment on social media and in internal communications. Some of them accused the board of directors of being out of touch with the company's mission and values and of trying to interfere with its research agenda and culture. Others claimed that the board was motivated by personal or financial interests and had violated the company's governance principles.
As a result of the backlash, the board agreed to resign Saturday and reinstate Altman as CEO. They also welcomed Greg Brockman, president and former president of OpenAI, who resigned in solidarity with Altman on Friday. Brockman and Altman are close friends and are rumored to be planning to start a new company together, even before the board's intervention.
However, revoking the board may not be enough to prevent further damage to the company's reputation and morale. Several senior OpenAI researchers already left the company on Friday and more are expected to follow suit. Some of them have expressed discontent with the company's direction and culture, and their desire to conduct more independent and open research elsewhere. The loss of these talented researchers could hamper OpenAI's ability to fulfill its ambitious vision of creating artificial general intelligence that can benefit humanity.