OpenAI’s Chief Scientist and co-founder, Ilya Sutskever, has announced his departure from the artificial intelligence company. In his resignation announcement, he mentioned that he is working on a new project but did not explain the reason for leaving at this time. Despite leaving, Sutskever expressed confidence in OpenAI’s future and believes that the company will establish safe and beneficial AI.
This recent personnel change follows the “coup” vote initiated by Sutskever six months ago to dismiss OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Although he expressed regret for the decision a few days later, this latest departure highlights the ongoing leadership upheaval at OpenAI since the November drama last year. Following the incident, almost all of the board members at OpenAI were replaced.
In an article on Medium, Sutskever stated that the trajectory of OpenAI’s development has been remarkable, and he considers it an honor to have worked together with the team. Altman also expressed his admiration for Sutskever on social media, calling him one of the greatest thinkers of our time and a guiding light in the field of artificial intelligence. OpenAI President Greg Brockman described Sutskever as an artist with infectious vision and passion.
Sutskever was one of the pioneering researchers to prove that deep learning could be used to solve pattern recognition problems. His contributions propelled the development of AI and eventually led to his co-founding of OpenAI, attracting many outstanding researchers to the company. At OpenAI, his focus was primarily on developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) with human-level thinking capabilities and ensuring that AGI aligns with human values.
Last year, before Thanksgiving, Sutskever expressed dissatisfaction with Altman’s focus on rapidly launching AI products without prioritizing safety. The previous board suddenly dismissed Altman without notifying most OpenAI employees, stating that he had not been transparent 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. Eventually, Altman was successfully reinstated, and most members of the previous board resigned.
In Sutskever’s absence, Jakub Pachocki, the research director at OpenAI, will take over his position. In fact, since the events of November last year, Sutskever has not returned to his role, and Pachocki has informally managed the research department. Pachocki joined OpenAI in 2017 as the research director of the OpenAI Dota team, leading the team to develop an AI system capable of defeating human players in the game Dota 2. He later became the director of reasoning and deep learning science at OpenAI and was subsequently 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 unclear whether Pachocki will take over the Alignment team as well. The team’s main mission is to ensure that AI remains within bounds and has the correct values, preventing a day where humans face the consequences of “uncontrolled AI.”
Sources:
Wall Street Journal, CNBC, TechCrunch