- Ilya Sutskever announced on Tuesday that he will leave OpenAI after a decade
- He was one of four board members who voted to oust CEO Sam Altman.
- Sutskever was reportedly concerned about Altman’s focus on growth over security.
OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, one of the original creators of the AI technology behind ChatGPT, announced that he is leaving the company after nearly a decade.
Sutskever was one of four board members who voted last fall to oust CEO Sam Altman from the company, only to quickly reinstate him.
It was Sutskever, OpenAI’s chief scientist, who told Altman last November that he was being fired.
Sutskever announced his decision Tuesday on social media site X. He said he is working on a new project that is “very personally meaningful” to him, but offered no further details.
“After almost a decade, I made the decision to leave OpenAI,” Sutskever said.
OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever announced Tuesday that he is leaving the company after nearly a decade.
‘It was an honor and a privilege to have worked together and I will miss you all dearly. See you later and thanks for everything. I’m excited about what’s next – a project that has very personal meaning to me and which I will share details of in due course.’
Meanwhile, Altman wrote that parting ways is “very sad” and called Sutskever “one of the brightest minds of our generation, a guiding light in our field, and a dear friend.”
Altman had been fired from his position as CEO of OpenAI in November, prompting the tech mogul to comment on X that it was “kind of like reading your own eulogy while you’re still alive.”
Jakob Pachocki and his co-founder Greg Brockman were apparently taken aback by the firing and both resigned in protest of the alleged ambush.
Brockman said in a series of posts on X that co-founder Ilya Sutskever asked Altman to attend a meeting at noon on Friday. Brockman was the only board member not present.
At that meeting, Altman was told he would be fired.
The New York Times later reported that Sutskever and Altman had been feuding for at least a year.
Sutskever was one of four board members who voted last fall to oust CEO Sam Altman from the company.
Altman had been fired from his position as CEO of OpenAI in November
Sutskever was reportedly concerned about Altman’s focus on AI growth over safety. The couple had been working together for eight years at the time of their dismissal.
Sutskever will be replaced by Jakub Pachocki as chief scientist at San Francisco-based OpenAI.
Altman called Pachocki “also easily one of the brightest minds of our generation” and said he is “very confident that he will guide us to make rapid and safe progress toward our mission of ensuring AGI benefits everyone.”
short for general artificial intelligenceAGI is a futuristic vision of machines that are as intelligent as humans or at least can do many things as well as people.
On Monday, OpenAI introduced an update Based on its AI model, it can reason through text, audio and video in real time.