Microsoft on Friday announced the hiring of OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman following the board of directors of the startup, whose chatbot ChatGPT has led the technology’s meteoric rise. Artificial intelligence (IA), will remove him from his position as Executive Director.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella noted on his X Network account that “Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, along with other colleagues, will join Microsoft to lead a new cutting-edge AI research team.”

“The mission continues,” Altman wrote in X.

High-level changes

OpenAI has named Emmett Shear, former CEO of Amazon streaming platform Twitch, as its new CEO, despite pressure from Microsoft and other major investors to replace Altman in the role.

OpenAI’s board of directors fired Altman on Friday. According to US media, there were concerns that the company’s former director underestimated the dangers of his technology and distracted the company from its goals.

That decision by the board led to high-ranking officials leaving the company, as well as an attempt by major investors to get Altman back.

The former director rose to fame with the release of the Open AI chatbot for artificial intelligence in 2022, a technology that led to a race to advance research and development in this field, as well as a wave of billions of dollars of investment for the sector.

Brockman claimed in X that Microsoft’s AI team initially consisted of three former OpenAI colleagues who resigned after Altman was fired.

“We are going to build something new and it will be incredible. The mission continues,” Brockman said, mentioning former research director Jakub Pachocki, head of AI risk assessment Aleksander Madry and veteran researcher Szymon Sidor.

Dismissal “poorly handled”

OpenAI stood by its decision on Altman in a memo sent to employees Sunday evening, saying that “Sam’s conduct and lack of transparency… undermined the board’s ability to effectively oversee the company,” The reported New York Times.

Shear confirmed his appointment as interim CEO of OpenAI in a post on X on Monday, while denying reports that Altman had been fired over security concerns related to the use of AI technology.

“Today I received a call inviting me to consider a unique opportunity: becoming interim CEO of @OpenAI. “After consulting with my family and thinking about it for a few hours, I accepted,” he wrote.

“Before accepting the job, I checked the reasoning behind the change. “The board did not fire Sam because of a specific disagreement about safety, their reasoning was completely different,” he said.

“It is clear that the process and communication surrounding Sam’s removal was very poorly handled,” Shear added.

Microsoft has invested more than $10 billion in OpenAI and has implemented the technology developed by the startup into its own products.

“We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and are confident in our product roadmap,” said Nadella.

OpenAI competes fiercely with other companies, including Microsoft itself, Google and Meta, as well as startups such as Anthropic and Stability AI, in developing AI-based applications.

Generative AI platforms like ChatGPT are powered and powered by large amounts of data, allowing them to answer any type of question in human-like language. They can also be used to generate and manipulate images or create all kinds of sounds and expressions. (JO)