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BREAKING:
Meltdown at #OpenAI after a hot weekend.
Via #GraemeWearden @TheGuardian
"Business live
👉OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless Sam Altman returns👈
Full story: Microsoft hires former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman
OpenAI is in turmoil after shock departure of co-founder Sam Altman last week
OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns and Altman returns...
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...Around 500 staff have signed a letter threatening to leave unless the board resigns and reinstates Sam #Altman as CEO, along with cofounder and former president Greg Brockman.
The letter says #OpenAI (the firm behind #ChatGPT) has pushed the field of artificial intelligence to new frontiers, but warns:
“The process through which you terminated Sam Altman and removed Greg Brockman from the board has jeopardized all of this work and undermined our mission...
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...and company.
Your conduct has made it clear you did not have the competence to oversee #OpenAI.”
The letter has emerged just hours after #Microsoft revealed it had hired #Altman and #Brockman, just after weekend negotiations to reinstate Altman under pressure from investers floundered.
In the letter, the staff say they may choose to resign and join Microsoft’s new #AI division which will be run by Altman and Brockman.
They tell the board that the...
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...letter’s signaturies are “unable to work for or with people that lack competence, judgment and care for our mission and employees.”
Technology journalist #KaraSwisher has posted the letter on X (formerly Twitter) – and points out that OpenAI’s chief scientist, #IlyaSutskever, has signed it, even though he is a member of the board that fired Altman.
As flagged earlier, #Sutskever has posted on #X today that “I deeply regret...
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...my participation in the board’s actions”.
That came shortly after OpenAI appointed #EmmettShear, the co-founder of #Twitch, as interim CEO.
Altman had posted a photo yesterday of himself in the #OpenAI offices, wearing a guest visitor badge for the “first and last time”, fuelling speculation he could be dramatically reappointed just a few days after being ousted...
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...Over on FT #Alphaville, #BryceElder has written a rather witty piece on the drama in the #ArtificialIntelligence world, titled "How to talk to an elderly relative about Altman, #OpenAI and #Microsoft".
You can see it all here (registration needed, but worth it), arguing that you probably don’t need to care very much about the drama.
But here’s a couple of key points:
Why was #Altman fired?
He was not “consistently candid in his communications”, OpenAI said, without...
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...elaborating. The general theme of reporting so far is that the board was split over #Altman’s commercialisation efforts, including his tapping up #SoftBank for an #AI chip venture.
But also, the Temple was running low on Wizards. Three of the more commercially minded board directors resigned earlier this year — Presidential candidate #WillHurd, #LinkedIn cofounder #ReidHoffman and #ShivonZilis, a VC who’s been friendly at least once with #OpenAI...
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...founder investor #ElonMusk — which reduced the board to six and gave doomwarts like #OpenAI chief scientist #IlyaSutskever greater influence.
Things came to a head at #OpenAI’s maiden developer day on November 6, where #Altman announced moves to give developers more freedom to develop custom versions of #ChatGPT. Paying customers will be able to make use-specific bots that can tap into external sources of information by feeding the machine up to 300...
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... pages of prompts. But the safety-minded types weren’t keen on the idea of letting loose millions of baby #ChatGPTs on corporate intranets and the open web...
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...Today’s rally has pushed #Microsoft’s shares to a new record high, extending their gains this year to over 55%.
They gained as much as 1.9% to hit $377.1, above last Thursday’s record high.
#Reuters has the details:
The #Nasdaq led gains among the main U.S. stock indexes on Monday as Microsoft climbed on news that former #OpenAI head #SamAltman will join the software giant, while investors awaited more clues on when the Federal Reserve might begin...
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...cutting interest rates.
#Microsoft’s shares advanced 1.4%, notching a record high after CEO #SatyaNadella said Altman is set to join the company to lead a new advanced #AI research team.
The information technology sub-index housing the stock was among top sectoral gainers, up 0.7%.
Other #megacap stocks were mixed, with #Amazon.com edging 0.7% higher, while Alphabet slipped 0.4%...
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#NicholasZieglasch, Head of Equity Research at financial services firm #Killik & Co, says #Microsoft has done well out of the turmoil at #OpenAI.
#Zieglasch explains:
“The global technology giant today announced it had hired the ex-CEO of #OpenAI to lead a new advanced #AI research team. It also confirmed that it is maintaining its existing relationship with OpenAI. We see the announcement as positive for Microsoft as it bolsters its internal #AI capabilities...
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...while still having access to #OpenAI tools.
“Earlier last week, #Microsoft also announced its first in-house designed CPU and AI accelerators. These are important pieces to be able to offer fully vertically integrated cloud infrastructure, allowing maximum performance and efficiency to be extracted for relevant workloads. It will continue to offer access to #NVIDIA and #AMD accelerators, and recently announced a...
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...new #NVIDIA based #Azure supercomputer that has taken the number three rank on the global supercomputer list.
“We continue to see #Microsoft as one of the key enablers of enterprise digital transformation, across the front office, back office and operational assets. Azure is the leader in enterprise cloud infrastructure in terms of offering, with more data centres than any peer and as well as the best #AI infrastructure for both training and inference. Its...
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...Teams product is increasingly becoming the communications tool of choice within enterprises. It is also a global leader in cybersecurity and identity management. It is investing in generative AI as the next leg of technology disruption.
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HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴