November has been an entertaining month for the field of AI, packed with regulations, new laws, different deals, and new announcements. In mid-November, we were struck with the News that Sam Altan, co-founder of OpenAI, the fathering company of the infamous ChatGPT, has been FIRED. That was very shocking for a lot of people because a few days prior, he presented GPTs, an extension to ChatGPT 3.5 and ChatGPT 4.0. In this article, let’s take a tour of all the events till now.
On November 6, 2023, Sam Altman announced ChatGPT 4 Turbo on OpenAI DevDay. GPT-4 Turbo Assistants, API, Custom GPTs, the GPT Store, Custom Models, and Copyright Shield are the top five takeaways from DevDay 2023.
Getting Fired From OpenAI
OpenAI, the business behind ChatGPT, has stated that CEO and co-founder Sam Altman will step down from his position as CEO and from the firm’s board of directors effective immediately. According to the statement in a blog post on November 17, Altman was not “consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities,” which led to the board losing confidence in his ability to run the company.
According to the blog post, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, Mira Murati, will act as interim CEO. The business also announced that Greg Brockman, another OpenAI co-founder and president, will step down as chairman of the board while remaining president and reporting to Murati. The abrupt departure surprised the tech industry. In 2015, Altman and Elon Musk became co-founders of OpenAI. Altman has been the company’s public face since then, testifying at congressional hearings and conferences and starring in the company’s inaugural Developer Day conference last week.
Overseers at OpenAI were concerned that the business was developing the technological equivalent of a nuclear bomb and that its CEO, Sam Altman, was advancing so quickly that he threatened a worldwide catastrophe. As a result, the board sacked him. That may have been the most sensible solution in the end. However, the manner in which Altman was fired – abruptly, inexplicably, and without notice to some of OpenAI’s most important stakeholders and partners – defies logic. And it risks causing more significant harm than if the board did nothing at all.
Is He Getting Rehired OR Not?
According to CNN contributor Kara Swisher, who spoke to sources familiar with the board’s decision to fire Altman, Microsoft was only aware of his dismissal after the public announcement. After Altman was fired, Microsoft’s stock plummeted.
Employees should have been informed in advance. Neither was Greg Brockman, the company’s co-founder and former president, who claimed in a post on X that he learned of Altman’s firing moments before it occurred. Brockman, a strong supporter of Altman and the company’s strategic leadership, resigned on Friday. Altman devotees were just some of the ones who left. Moreover, the reason was also not clarified.
Greg Brockman’s post on X also shows how clueless they were.
Sam and I are shocked and saddened by what the board did today.
Let us first say thank you to all the incredible people who we have worked with at OpenAI, our customers, our investors, and all of those who have been reaching out.
We too are still trying to figure out exactly…
— Greg Brockman (@gdb) November 18, 2023
OpenAI was suddenly in trouble. Reports that Altman and ex-OpenAI employees were planning to launch their startup threatened to ruin everything the company had worked so hard to achieve over the previous many years.
So, a day later, the board allegedly requested a reversal and attempted to entice Altman back. It was a surprising turn of events and an embarrassing admission by a firm widely considered the most promising manufacturer of the most exciting new technology.
After a weekend of talks to reinstate Sam Altman as CEO of OpenAI following his unexpected dismissal, the company’s nonprofit board has instead appointed Emmett Shear, a former CEO and co-founder of Twitch, to serve in an interim capacity. He will be replacing temporary CEO Mira Murati, who was publicly allied with Altman. According to persons familiar with the case, OpenAI’s board chose former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear as CEO, despite investor calls to reinstall dismissed CEO Sam Altman.
Shear resigned as CEO of Amazon’s Twitch game-streaming service earlier this year. One of the participants said he won the directors because he seemed to comprehend the existential concerns that AI faced. Shear is seen as having the heft to oversee a significant engineering organization, having spent more than a decade establishing Twitch as one of the world’s most popular video platforms.
If you’re keeping track, that’s three CEOs in three days.
Microsoft Going Big
Microsoft revealed Monday that it had hired Sam Altman, co-founder of ChatGPT maker OpenAI after he was abruptly booted out of the firm days earlier in a corporate shakeup that stunned the artificial intelligence field.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the business was “extremely excited” that Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, as well as other AI company executives, will join Microsoft to oversee a “new advanced AI research team.”
Nadella also stated that Microsoft, one of the biggest investors in OpenAI, was looking forward to “getting to know” OpenAI’s new CEO, Emmett Shear, who was appointed to succeed Altman. “The mission continues,” Altman replied to Nadella on X.
Sam and I are shocked and saddened by what the board did today.
Let us first say thank you to all the incredible people who we have worked with at OpenAI, our customers, our investors, and all of those who have been reaching out.
We too are still trying to figure out exactly…
— Greg Brockman (@gdb) November 18, 2023
Microsoft is also gearing up with the humongous funding of more than $50 Billion after recruiting Sam Altman. Even Elon is shocked by that. In a recent tweet, he posted “Yikes!” while sharing a picture of the announcement.
Yikes! pic.twitter.com/sJI97R9DJK
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2023
Now! let’s see what the future of AI holds for us in the coming days. Get yourself buckled up for the new announcements
