The OpenAI Saga: A Deep Dive into the Chaos
The recent events surrounding OpenAI have caused quite a stir in the AI community. In this article, we will take a deep dive into the chaos and try to make sense of what has been going on. From the firing of Sam Altman to the open letter signed by 747 out of 770 OpenAI employees, we will cover it all.
The Firing of Sam Altman
Sam Altman, the former CEO of OpenAI, was fired by the board while attending the Formula One race in Las Vegas. The reasons for his firing were not made clear, and even when the new CEO, EMT Shear, demanded the board to provide concrete evidence of Sam Altman's wrongdoing, they did not do so. The board intimated that there wasn't one incident that led to their decision to eject Altman but instead a consistent slow erosion of trust over time that made them increasingly uneasy.
The OpenAI Charter
One thing that has been lost in the chaos is the original OpenAI Charter. It said it would be wise to view any investment in OpenAI Global in the spirit of a donation, with the understanding that it may be difficult to know what role money will play in a post-AGI world. Furthermore, the charter takes precedence over any obligation to generate a profit. The company may never make a profit, and the company is under no obligation to do so. With a tentative 90 billion valuation, one wonders how many OpenAI employees would sign up to that charter again.
The Open Letter
The open letter signed by 747 out of 770 OpenAI employees described how the board stated that allowing the company to be destroyed wouldn't necessarily be inconsistent with the mission of creating safe and beneficial AGI. The employees then threatened to resign from OpenAI and all join Microsoft unless all current board members resign.
Microsoft's Involvement
Microsoft had announced the arrival of Sam Altman and even gotten a floor of their office in San Francisco ready with laptops and clusters of GPUs. Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, even said that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman were in the process of joining Microsoft. However, OpenAI decided to stay independent, and Nadella said, "We're never going to get back into a situation where we're surprised like this again."
Inflection AI
Inflection AI has finished training the second-best large language model in the world, beating Palm 2, which now powers Bard. It also apparently beats XAI's Grock 1 and Anthropics Claude 2.0 model. Anthropics has introduced Claude 2.1, which is a small iterative update that has scaled up its context window to 200,000 tokens.
AI Detection of Pancreatic Cancer
In other AI news, AI detection of a certain type of pancreatic cancer, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, has now overtaken mean radiologist performance. This is an AI advance that could genuinely save thousands of lives.
Conclusion
The OpenAI saga has been an utterly insane weekend, but it's time to move on to other AI news. The events surrounding OpenAI have caused quite a stir in the AI community, and it remains to be seen what the future holds for the company. However, with advances like AI detection of pancreatic cancer, we can see the potential for AI to make a real difference in people's lives.
Highlights
- Sam Altman, the former CEO of OpenAI, was fired by the board while attending the Formula One race in Las Vegas.
- The open letter signed by 747 out of 770 OpenAI employees described how the board stated that allowing the company to be destroyed wouldn't necessarily be inconsistent with the mission of creating safe and beneficial AGI.
- Inflection AI has finished training the second-best large language model in the world, beating Palm 2, which now powers Bard.
- AI detection of a certain type of pancreatic cancer, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, has now overtaken mean radiologist performance.
FAQ
Q: What is the OpenAI Charter?
A: The OpenAI Charter said it would be wise to view any investment in OpenAI Global in the spirit of a donation, with the understanding that it may be difficult to know what role money will play in a post-AGI world.
Q: Why did OpenAI employees threaten to resign?
A: OpenAI employees threatened to resign from OpenAI and all join Microsoft unless all current board members resign.
Q: What is the significance of AI detection of pancreatic cancer?
A: AI detection of pancreatic cancer has now overtaken mean radiologist performance and could genuinely save thousands of lives.
Resources: None mentioned.
