OpenAI’s Chief Scientist and co-founder, Ilya Sutskever, has announced his departure from the artificial intelligence company. In his resignation announcement, Sutskever stated that he is embarking on a new project but did not explain the reason for his departure. He expressed confidence in the future of OpenAI, believing that the company will establish safe and beneficial artificial intelligence.
Six months ago, Sutskever initiated a “coup” vote to dismiss OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman. Although he expressed regret for this decision a few days later, this latest personnel change shows that the leadership at OpenAI has been in turmoil since the drama in November last year. After the incident, OpenAI replaced almost all of its directors.
In an article on Medium, Sutskever described OpenAI’s development trajectory as miraculous and expressed his honor to have worked with everyone. Altman also stated on social media that Sutskever is one of the greatest thinkers of our time, a guiding light in the field of artificial intelligence, and his good friend. OpenAI’s President, Greg Brockman, described Sutskever as an artist, stating that his vision and passion are infectious.
AI technology safety sparked the “coup” last year
Sutskever was one of the first researchers to demonstrate that deep learning can be used to solve pattern recognition problems. His contributions have propelled the development of AI and eventually led to his co-founding of OpenAI. His involvement has also helped OpenAI attract numerous talented researchers. At OpenAI, his main focus was on developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) that possesses human-level thinking capabilities, while ensuring that AGI aligns with human values.
Last Thanksgiving, Sutskever expressed dissatisfaction with Altman’s haste to launch AI products without considering safety. The former board suddenly dismissed Altman without notifying most OpenAI employees and stated that Altman had not been candid in his communication with the board.
This decision angered Microsoft and other investors in OpenAI, leading to the resignation of most OpenAI employees, including Sutskever, unless Altman was reinstated promptly. Ultimately, Altman successfully returned to his position, and most members of the former board resigned.
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Jakub Pachocki takes over from Sutskever, who is he?
After Sutskever’s departure, Jakub Pachocki, the research director at OpenAI, will take over his position. In fact, Sutskever has not returned to his position since the events in November last year, and Pachocki has been informally managing the research department.
Pachocki joined OpenAI in 2017 as the research director of the OpenAI Dota team, leading the team in building an AI system capable of defeating human players in the Dota 2 game. Later, he became the director of reasoning and deep learning at OpenAI and was then promoted to research lead.
At the same time as Sutskever’s departure, Jan Leike, who co-led the Alignment team with him, also announced his departure from the company. However, it is uncertain whether Pachocki will take over the Alignment team as well. The team’s main task is to ensure that AI stays within bounds and has the correct values, to prevent a day when humans encounter “out-of-control AI.”
This article was initially written by AI and edited by Chen Jianjun.
Editors: Li Xiantai, Li Pengrui
Source:
Wall Street Journal, CNBC, TechCrunch