Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI's co-founder and chief scientist, joined other board members last November to oust the company's high-profile CEO Sam Altman and helped launch a new artificial intelligence company.
The new startup is called Safe Superintelligence. The goal is to produce superintelligence, machines more intelligent than humans, in a safe manner, according to company spokesperson Lulu Cheng Meservey.
Dr. Sutskever, who said he regretted opposing Mr. Altman, declined to comment. This news was previously reported by Bloomberg.
Dr Sutskever, 38, announced last month that he was leaving OpenAI to start a new project, but gave no details. Mr. Meserbey declined to say who was funding the company or how much it had raised. She said the company will not launch another product as it builds a safe superintelligence.
Dr. Sutskever founded the company with Daniel Gross, who worked in AI at Apple, and Daniel Levy, who worked with Dr. Sutskever at OpenAI. Dr Sutskever's position at the new company will be Chief Scientist, but according to Mr Meservey, he describes his role as “responsible for revolutionary innovation”.
In November 2022, OpenAI captured the world's imagination with the launch of ChatGPT, an online chatbot that can answer questions, write term papers, generate computer code, and even mimic human conversations. The tech industry has quickly embraced a technology called Generative Artificial Intelligence, a technology that can generate text, images, and other media.
Many experts believe these technologies are poised to reinvent everything from email programs to Internet search engines and digital assistants. Some believe this change will have as big an impact as web browsers or smartphones.
(The New York Times sued OpenAI and its partner Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement of news content related to the AI system.)
Mr. Altman has become the face of the movement toward generative AI, meeting with lawmakers, regulators, and investors around the world and testifying before Congress. Last November, Dr. Sutskever and three other OpenAI board members unexpectedly ousted him, saying they could no longer trust him with the company's plans to one day create machines that could do everything the human brain can do.
Days later, after hundreds of OpenAI employees threatened to quit, Dr Sutskever said he regretted the decision to fire Mr Altman. Mr. Altman returned as CEO after he and the board agreed to replace two board members with Bret Taylor, a former Salesforce executive, and Lawrence Summers, a former U.S. Treasury secretary. Dr. Sutskever has effectively resigned from the Board of Directors.
Last year, Dr. Sutskever helped create the Superalignment team within OpenAI to ensure that future AI technologies do no harm. Like others in the field, he grew increasingly concerned that AI could become dangerous and even destroy humanity.
Jan Leike, who ran the Superalignment team with Dr. Sutskever, also resigned from OpenAI. He was later hired by OpenAI's competitor Anthropic (another company founded by former OpenAI researchers).