A bang at OpenAI
ChatGPT developer fires co-founder Sam Altman
November 17, 2023, 10:59 p.m
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With the development of ChatGPT, the company OpenAI is causing a sensation. Now boss and co-founder Sam Altman has to leave the company. The board of directors speaks of a loss of trust.
There is a surprising change in management at the developer company behind the popular chatbot ChatGPT. OpenAI’s board of directors withdrew its trust from co-founder and company director Sam Altman. Altman was not honest in his communication with the board, it said in a statement. “The board no longer has confidence in its ability to continue to lead OpenAI.”
Altman has been the public face of OpenAI and was in the spotlight at the company’s first developer conference just a few days ago. Technology boss Mira Murati will temporarily take over the top position while the permanent successor is to be arranged.
OpenAI was initially founded as a non-profit company in 2015. It caused a sensation around a year ago with the introduction of ChatGPT. The chatbot can use artificial intelligence (AI) to generate essays, poems or conversations from very short prompts. OpenAI has thus become a pioneer in the technology. Microsoft entered into a multi-billion dollar pact with the company to bring its technology into the company’s products.
Already known in Silicon Valley before ChatGPT
From the outset, OpenAI proclaimed the goal of finding a responsible approach to artificial intelligence. AI could bring great benefit to society, but also potentially cause great harm, explained the founding team at the time, which included Altman and Tesla boss Elon Musk, among others. “Artificial intelligence has the potential to improve almost every aspect of our lives,” Altman told Congress in May. “But it also poses serious risks.”
Altman, who grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, had already made a name for himself in Silicon Valley before he became known worldwide with ChatGPT. Altman studied computer science at California’s elite Stanford University, but dropped out and founded the app Loopt, which allowed users to share their location with friends and relatives.
He later joined the startup incubator Y Combinator, which helped launch successful companies such as the housing broker Airbnb and the delivery service DoorDash. In 2014, Altman became head of Y Combinator. He gave up the position five years later in order to concentrate more on OpenAI. Altman has also invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the fusion energy startup Helion and is working on a cryptocurrency called Worldcoin, whose users will be identified by their irises.