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☆ Big Tech just notched a huge win in California with an AI bill veto
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-30 | by ( Shubhangi Goel | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Gavin Newsom vetoed an artificial intelligence safety bill on Sunday. Gavin Newsom vetoed an artificial intelligence safety bill on Sunday, a win for AI heavyweights like OpenAI and Big Tech companies that lobbied against it. The debate in California reflects the challenge governments face walking the fine line between allowing tech companies to innovate while protecting against new potential risks. Elon Musk, who founded AI company xAI last year, said last month that although it was "a tough call and will make some people upset," he thought "California should probably pass the SB 1047 AI safety bill." Several former OpenAI employees also supported the safety bill and said that OpenAI's opposition to the bill was disappointing.

Persons: Gavin Newsom, Newsom, —, Sen, Scott Weiner, Wiener, didn't, Charles Schwab, Rob Sherman, Marc Andreessen, Andreessen Horowitz, Newsom's, Jason Kwon, Meta, Elon Musk, xAI, Dario Amodei, William Saunders, Daniel Kokotajlo Organizations: Service, Big Tech, Chevron, Tesla, Oracle, Venture Capital Locations: California, Silicon Valley

☆ OpenAI's power players: Meet the 20 leaders helping shape the future of the AI giant
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-18 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +18 min

Last November, the sudden ouster of CEO Sam Altman and the resulting revolt by most of its employees cast doubts on the future of the world's most prominent AI company. While by no means a comprehensive list, below are some of the key power players who are helping to determine OpenAI's future. He took over for his former boss, Jason Kwon, who has since become the company's chief strategy officer. She's also been referred to as OpenAI's "minister of truth" for her efforts to ensure the company's AI products aren't deceptive or biased. ResearchJakub Pachocki, Chief ScientistRelated storiesPachocki joined OpenAI's research in 2017 after completing a PhD in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University.

Persons: —, Sam Altman, OpenAI, Sarah Friar, Friar, Goldman Sachs, She's, Jason Kwon, Kwon, Anna Makanju, Global Affairs Chris Lehane, Che Cheng, OpenAI's, Cheng, Mira Murati, Murati, Kevin Weil, Weil, Instagram, Peter Welinder, Peter Deng, Research Jakub Pachocki, Pachocki, Ilya Sutkever, Ilya, Mark Chen, Chen, Bob McGrew, Sam Altman's, Lilian Weng, Weng, Aleksandr Madry, Barret Zoph, John Schulman, Zoph, Alec Radford, Radford, Zico Kolter, Kolter, Paul Nakasone, Bret Taylor, Taylor, He's, Larry Summers, Fidji Simo, Melinda Gates, Nicole Seligman, Adam D'Angelo, Quora, Altman, D'Angelo, Andrea Appella, Haidee Schwartz, Schwartz, Akin Gump, She'll, Heather Whitney, Whitney, Morrison Foerster, Makanju, Sam, Biden, Chris Lehane, Lehane, Clinton Organizations: Service, OpenAI, Business, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Khosla Ventures, Global, Global Affairs, Amazon, supercomputing, Tesla, Meta, Twitter, ChatGPT Enterprise, Research, Carnegie Mellon University, MIT, Facebook, Security, Machine Learning Department, Carnegie Mellon Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, CMU, Safety, Security Committee, US Army, NSA, US Cyber Command, Defense Department, U.S, Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Competition, Netflix, Century Fox, Competition, Federal Trade Commission, New York Times, Harvard Law School, University of Chicago Law School, NYU, Canada, Global Policy, Public Affairs, House, Newsweek Locations: Europe, Washington, OpenAI, Silicon, Middle East, Asia, London, Chan, Airbnb

☆ Former OpenAI researchers warn of 'catastrophic harm' after the company opposes AI safety bill
▼ + stars: | 2024-08-24 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

"We joined OpenAI because we wanted to ensure the safety of the incredibly powerful AI systems the company is developing," the researchers, William Saunders and Daniel Kokotajlo, wrote in the letter. "But we resigned from OpenAI because we lost trust that it would safely, honestly, and responsibly develop its AI systems." AdvertisementThey continued: "Developing frontier AI models without adequate safety precautions poses foreseeable risks of catastrophic harm to the public." SB1047 "has inspired thoughtful debate," and OpenAI supports some of its safety provisions, Kwon's letter, dated a day before the researchers' letter was sent, read. "We cannot wait for Congress to act — they've explicitly said that they aren't willing to pass meaningful AI regulation," Saunders and Kokotajlo wrote.

Persons: —, Gavin Newsom, William Saunders, Daniel Kokotajlo, Saunders, Kokotajlo, Sam Altman, Jason Kwon, Scott Wiener, Kokotajlo aren't, OpenAI, California's, — they've, Newsom Organizations: Service, Politico, California Gov, Business, California Legislature, Wiener Locations: California

☆ Despite recent apologies and reassurances, documents leaked to Vox show OpenAI pressured departing employees over equity
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-23 | by ( Sarah Gray | Erin Snodgrass | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A Vox story on Saturday said the company could take back vested equity if departing employees did not sign a non-disparagement agreement. "For a company to threaten to claw back already-vested equity is egregious and unusual," California employment law attorney Chambord Benton-Hayes told Vox. AdvertisementOn Saturday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on X, "Vested equity is vested equity, full stop." We have not and never will take away vested equity, even when people didn't sign the departure documents. Not signing "could impact your equity," OpenAI told one of them, per Vox.

Persons: —, Chambord Benton, Hayes, Vox, Sam Altman, Altman, Kelsey Piper's, OpenAI execs, Jason Kwon, Kwon, OpenAI, i've, Scarlett Johansson Organizations: Service, Equity, Business, Vox Locations: California, Vox

Last week, Musk sued OpenAI and co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman for breach of contract and fiduciary duty. "It's certainly a good advertisement for the benefit of Elon Musk," Kevin O'Brien, partner at Ford O'Brien Landy LLP and former assistant U.S. attorney, told CNBC. In the suit, Musk's lawyers say they want OpenAI to return to its work as a research lab and no longer exist for the "financial benefit" of Microsoft. Musk's attorneys didn't respond to a request for comment. Musk has an AI company of his own, X.AI, which introduced a competing chatbot called Grok in November after two months of training.

Persons: Elon Musk, Tesla, Beata Zawrzel, Elon, Musk, OpenAI, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, It's, Kevin O'Brien, Ford O'Brien Landy, I'm, O'Brien, isn't, Shannon Capone Kirk, Ropes & Gray, Chris Ratliffe, Kirk, —, X.AI, He's, bigwigs, Andrej Karpathy, Kyle Kosic, OpenAI's, Jason Kwon, Kwon Organizations: Nurphoto, Microsoft, Elon, CNBC, Ropes &, Ropes & Gray LLP, Bloomberg House, Economic, Bloomberg, Getty, The New York Times, SEC, Tesla, X.AI, OpenAI Locations: Krakow, Poland, Davos, Switzerland, OpenAI

☆ Sam Altman appeared to troll Elon Musk by dredging up a years-old Twitter post
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-04 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI last week. AdvertisementSam Altman seemed keen to attract Elon Musk's attention by resurfacing an old conversation with the owner of X. Altman wrote "anytime" next to a salute emoji in the conversation thread, in which he had previously praised Musk and Tesla. Be the person on the side of the climate and innovation, not the person hoping to make money on puts," Altman wrote in 2019. OpenAI was founded by Altman, Musk, CTO Greg Brockman, and several other engineers and scientists as a nonprofit, its website said.

Persons: Elon Musk, Sam Altman, OpenAI, Altman, Musk, —, Elon, Sam, Greg Brockman, Musk's, Jason Kwon, Axios, Kwon, ChatGPT, OpenAI didn't Organizations: Service, Twitter, Tesla, Elon, Microsoft, Bloomberg, Enterprise

☆ Silicon Valley moguls are weighing in on Elon Musk's battle with OpenAI and it's getting cattier than a 'Real Housewives' reunion
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-04 | by ( Kwan Wei Kevin Tan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Read previewElon Musk and his fellow billionaire tech bros are brawling over their differing views on OpenAI, and the back-and-forth is getting ugly. On Thursday, Elon Musk sued OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman. "Vinod doesn't know what he is talking about here," Musk wrote in a reply on X. "Vinod is lobbying to ban open source," Andreessen wrote on X.AdvertisementVinod is lobbying to ban open source. Representatives for Musk, Khosla, and Andreessen did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

Persons: —, Elon Musk, OpenAI, Sam Altman, Altman, Musk, OpenAI didn't, Vinod Khosla, Khosla, Elon, Vinod doesn't, @OpenAI, Marc Andreessen, Vinod, Andreessen, D9ihtHEOiB, Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 ( Organizations: Service, Microsoft, Business, xAI, Venture, Netscape Locations: OpenAI

☆ The Paradox at the Heart of Elon Musk’s OpenAI Lawsuit
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-02 | by ( Kevin Roose | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It would be easy to dismiss Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI as a case of sour grapes. Mr. Musk sued OpenAI this week, accusing the company of breaching the terms of its founding agreement and violating its founding principles. In his telling, OpenAI was established as a nonprofit that would build powerful A.I. But Mr. Musk argues that OpenAI broke that promise by starting a for-profit subsidiary that took on billions of dollars in investments from Microsoft. And Mr. Musk’s falling out with Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, has been well documented.

Persons: Elon, Musk, OpenAI, Jason Kwon, Musk’s, “, A.I, haven’t, Sam Altman Organizations: OpenAI, Microsoft

“We believe the claims in this suit may stem from Elon’s regrets about not being involved with the company today,” wrote OpenAI Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon in an internal memo on Friday that was viewed by CNBC. The next year, Musk gave nearly $20 million to OpenAI, which the attorneys reiterated was more than other backers. "We did not think either approach was right for the mission," Kwon wrote. Regarding OpenAI's transformation from an "open source foundation" to a multibillion-dollar for-profit company, Musk said, "I don't know, is this legal?" — CNBC's Lora Kolodny and Hayden Field contributed to this reportWATCH: Elon Musk lawsuit against OpenAI and Altman began a year ago

Persons: Elon Musk, Tesla, ”, Jason Kwon, Sam Altman, OpenAI, Altman, Musk, Greg Brockman, Kwon, they've, Andrej Karpathy, Karpathy, didn't, — CNBC's Lora Kolodny, Hayden Field, Elon Organizations: CNBC, Elon, Microsoft, Tesla, The New York Times, OpenAI Locations: OpenAI

As Open AI employees celebrated the return of CEO Sam Altman with a five-alarm office party , OpenAI software engineer Steven Heidel was busy publicly rebuffing overtures from Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. Heidel was one of more than 700 OpenAI employees who's threatened exodus halted a would-be mutiny at one of Silicon Valley's most important AI companies. He was previously a scientist at Facebook AI Research and worked as a member of Google Brain under supervision of Prof. Geoffrey Hinton and Ilya Sutskever. Alec Radford: Radford was hired in 2016 from a small AI company he founded in his dorm room. Tao Xu : technical staff, worked on GPT4 and WhisperChristine McLeavey : technical staff, with contributions to music-related productsChristina Kim : technical staffChristopher Hesse : technical staffHeewoo Jun : technical staff, researchAlex Nichol : technical staff, researchWilliam Fedus: technical staff, researchIlge Akkaya: technical staff, researchVineet Kosaraju : technical staff, researchHenrique Ponde de Oliveira Pinto : technical staffAditya Ramesh : technical staff, developed DALL-E and DALL-E 2Prafulla Dhariwal : research scientistHunter Lightman : technical staffHarrison Edwards : research scientistYura Burda : machine language researcherTyna Eloundou : technical staff, researchPamela Mishkin : researcherCasey Chu : researcherDavid Dohan : technical staff, researchAidan Clark : researcherRaul Puri : research scientistLeo Gao : technical staff, researchYang Song : technical staff, researchGiambattista ParascandoloTodor Markov : Machine learning researcherNick Ryder : technical staff

Persons: Sam Altman, Steven Heidel, Marc Benioff, Heidel, Altman, Mira Murati, Murati, Brad Lightcap, Lightcap, Jason Kwon, Kwon, Wojciech Zaremba, Geoffrey Hinton, Ilya Sutskever, Alec Radford, Radford, OpenAI, Peter Welinder, He's, Github Copilot, Anna Makanju, Andrej Karpathy, OpenAI's, Michael Petrov, Petrov, Greg [ Brockman, Miles Brundage, Brundage, John Schulman OpenAI, Srinivas Narayanan, Scott Grey, Grey, Bob McGrew, Research Che Chang, Lillian Weng, Safety Systems Mark Chen, Frontiers Research Barret Zoph, Peter Deng, Jan Leike Evan Morikawa Steven Heidel Jong Wook Kim, Tao Xu, Christine McLeavey, Christina Kim, Christopher Hesse, Heewoo, Alex Nichol, William Fedus, Henrique Ponde de Oliveira Pinto, Aditya Ramesh, Hunter Lightman, Harrison Edwards, Yura, Tyna, Pamela Mishkin, Casey Chu, David Dohan, Aidan Clark, Raul Puri, Leo Gao, Yang, Giambattista Parascandolo Todor Markov, Nick Ryder Organizations: Business, BI, OpenAI, Khosla Ventures, Facebook, Research, Google, Tesla, U.S . Department of Energy, Oxford University, Safety Systems, Frontiers Research Locations: Albania, Canada, OpenAI

☆ Sam Altman is out of OpenAI and has joined Microsoft. Here's a full timeline of the chaos that landed him there.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-20 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Former Twitch CEO and cofounder, Emmett Shear, was named interim CEO of the company and Altman had joined former partner Microsoft. Altman was ousted from OpenAI in a shock board decisionAltman was immediately ousted from OpenAI in a dramatic board decision on Friday. According to a timeline provided by fellow OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman, Altman received a text from board member Ilya Sutskever asking to talk at midday Friday. OpenAI board was 'optimistic' about getting Altman backInvestors, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, were reportedly "blindsided" by the decision to remove Altman. Altman and Brockman join MicrosoftIn a final twist, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella scooped up Altman and Brockman to lead "a new advanced AI research team" at Microsoft.

Persons: Sam Altman, kickstarting, Altman, —, Emmett Shear, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Brockman, Sutskever, OpenAI, Satya Nadella, Jason Kwon, Nadella, Shear, Mira Murati, Aleksander Madry, Szymon Sidor, Jakub Pachocki Organizations: Microsoft, Service, Twitch, OpenAI, Bloomberg, The

☆ Former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman returns to headquarters for talks following his abrupt ouster
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-19 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI participates in the "Charting the Path Forward: The Future of Artificial Intelligence" at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Week in San Francisco, California, on November 16, 2023. Sam Altman, the recently ousted CEO of OpenAI, arrived as a guest Sunday at the headquarters of the company he founded. Altman posted a photo of himself on X, formerly Twitter, wearing an OpenAI visitor badge, writing, "first and last time i ever wear one of these." Jason Kwon, OpenAI's chief strategy officer, also posted a photo of Sam with the badge. Microsoft , Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global and venture firm Thrive Capital are part of an effort to reinstate Altman or have been in discussions with him, sources familiar told CNBC.

Persons: Sam Altman, Altman, Jason Kwon, Sam, Brad Lightcap, Lightcap, Greg Brockman, — CNBC's Rohan Goswami, Jordan Novet Organizations: Economic Cooperation, APEC, OpenAI, Microsoft, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, CNBC Locations: Asia, San Francisco , California

☆ OpenAI is 'optimistic' that it can bring ousted CEO Sam Altman and other senior figures back, The Information reported
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-19 | by ( Lloyd Lee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

OpenAI's board abruptly ousted CEO Sam Altman on Friday. In response, several senior figures, including OpenAI president Greg Brockman, left their posts. AdvertisementOpenAI appears "optimistic" that it can reel its ousted CEO Sam Altman back to the company just a day after he was suddenly pushed out of his role on Friday, The Information reported. i love the openai team so much — Sam Altman (@sama) November 19, 2023Several employees re-posted the note with a heart emoji. A condition that Altman set for him to re-assume his CEO role is if the existing board resigned, the Journal reported.

Persons: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, —, OpenAI, Jason Kwon, Altman, OpenAI's, — Jakub Pachocki, Aleksander Madry, Szymon Sidor —, Kwon, Sam, Greg, Jakub, Syzmon, Aleksander, Altman's Organizations: Service, Microsoft, Wall Street

☆ VCs weigh in on the chaos unfolding at OpenAI, rallying behind ousted CEO Sam Altman: 'I hope the board can get its act together'
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-19 | by ( Samantha Stokes | Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

OpenAI's board ousted Sam Altman, its chief executive, on Friday. AdvertisementVCs this weekend have one message for Sam Altman — we're with you. In another X post, he called on OpenAI's board to explain in more detail why they fired Altman. Advertisement"We are grateful for Sam's many contributions to the founding and growth of OpenAI," the board said in a statement. "So I hope the board can get its act together and bring Sam and Greg back."

Persons: OpenAI's, Sam Altman, —, Sam Altman —, Mira Murati, Altman, Vinod Khosla —, OpenAI —, Sam, David Sachs, OpenAI, ChatGPT —, Ilya Sutskever —, Sutskever, Jason Kwon, Altman's, He's, Greg Bockman, Jessica Livingston, Greg, Sam retakes OpenAI Organizations: Altman, Service, Khosla Ventures, Ventures, Microsoft Locations: Silicon, Silicon Valley, @OpenAI

☆ Sam Altman kicked off a flood of ❤️ emoji posts from OpenAI executives. Can someone just tell us if he's coming back or not?
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-19 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Sam Altman was forced out as CEO of OpenAI on Friday, in dramatic fashion. One that was more snarky than loving: "if i start going off, the openai board should go after me for the full value of my shares." AdvertisementYet, it was the one about the OpenAI team that kicked off our current mystery. Various members of OpenAI staff have liked both tweets. Johnathan Lachman, who heads special projects at OpenAI, retweeted Murati's heart reply to Altman adding "our team spirit is just incredible."

Persons: Sam Altman, Altman, Mira Murati, emojis, —, he'd, OpenAI, She's, Heart, Greg Brockman, what's, Jason Kwon, Brad Lightcap, Romain Huet, Aditya Ramesh, Johnathan Lachman, Brockman's, hasn't, Ilya Sutskever, Brockman, Vinod Khosla, Matthew McConaughey, Kali Hays Organizations: Service, Microsoft, Google, Altman, Twitter Locations: OpenAI, khays@insider.com, @hayskali

Sept 14 (Reuters) - Artificial intelligence leader OpenAI is opening an office in Dublin, the Microsoft (MSFT.O)-backed company announced Thursday. Its headquarters are in San Francisco and it announced it was opening a London office in June. The Dublin office will not be the company's European headquarters and there will not be an executive running the office, at least not yet, Kwon said. In opening a Dublin office, OpenAI is following a well-established American tech company strategy. Tax implications did not play a role in the decision, as OpenAI is not profitable, Kwon said.

Persons: OpenAI, Jason Kwon, Kwon, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anna Tong, Rosalba O'Brien Organizations: Microsoft, Reuters, Meta, Google, Thomson Locations: Dublin, San Francisco, Ireland, American, Europe

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