DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

Soon after, an Amazon executive sent a private message to an executive at another company. He said Anthropic had won the deal because it agreed to build its A.I. Amazon, he wrote, wanted to create a viable competitor to the chipmaker Nvidia, a key partner and kingmaker in the all-important field of artificial intelligence. over the last year exposed just how dependent big tech companies had become on Nvidia. They have spent billions of dollars on Nvidia’s systems, and the chipmaker has not kept up with the demand.

Persons: Amazon, Anthropic Organizations: Amazon, Nvidia Locations: Anthropic, San Francisco

☆ Cruise Says Hostility Toward Regulators Led to Grounding of Its Autonomous Cars
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-25 | by ( Tripp Mickle | Cade Metz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Cruise, the driverless car subsidiary of General Motors, said in a report on Thursday that an adversarial approach taken by its top executives toward regulators had led to a cascade of events that ended with a nationwide suspension of Cruise’s fleet. The roughly 100-page report was compiled by a law firm that Cruise hired to investigate whether its executives had misled California regulators about an October crash in San Francisco in which a Cruise vehicle dragged a woman 20 feet. The investigation found that while the executives had not intentionally misled state officials, they had failed to explain key details about the incident. The report is central to Cruise’s efforts to regain the public’s trust and eventually restart its business. Cruise has been largely shut down since October, when the California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended its license to operate because its vehicles were unsafe.

Persons: Cruise, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart, Kyle Vogt Organizations: General Motors, California Department of Motor Vehicles Locations: California, San Francisco, Sullivan

At 1 p.m. on a Friday shortly before Christmas last year, Kent Walker, Google’s top lawyer, summoned four of his employees and ruined their weekend. The group worked in SL1001, a bland building with a blue glass facade betraying no sign that dozens of lawyers inside were toiling to protect the interests of one of the world’s most influential companies. For weeks they had been prepping for a meeting of powerful executives to discuss the safety of Google’s products. The deck was done. But that afternoon Mr. Walker told his team the agenda had changed, and they would have to spend the next few days preparing new slides and graphs.

Persons: Kent Walker, Google’s, Walker Locations: SL1001

Page, hampered for more than a decade by an unusual ailment in his vocal cords, described his vision of a digital utopia in a whisper. If that happens, Mr. Musk said, we’re doomed. Finally he called Mr. Musk a “specieist,” a person who favors humans over the digital life-forms of the future. That debate has pitted some of the world’s richest men against one another: Mr. Musk, Mr. Page, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, the tech investor Peter Thiel, Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Sam Altman of OpenAI.

Persons: Page, Musk, we’re, ”, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Satya Nadella, Sam Altman, OpenAI Organizations: Valley, Meta, Microsoft Locations: Silicon

☆ OpenAI CEO Sam Altman went on an 18-month, $85 million real-estate shopping spree — including a previously unknown Hawaii estate
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Katherine Long | Hugh Langley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

AdvertisementYears before the recent drama at OpenAI turned CEO Sam Altman into a household name, the former Y Combinator president went on an extraordinary 18-month, $85 million real-estate shopping spree, according to records reviewed by Business Insider — including a previously unreported $43 million Hawaii estate on land that locals describe as historically significant. AdvertisementSam Altman's Hawaii estate is immediately adjacent to the reconstruction of the royal temple of King Kamehameha I. Maxar TechnologiesA $43 million estate in HawaiiIn July 2021, Altman bought a twelve-bedroom estate in Kailua-Kona, on the big island of Hawaii, for $43 million. Altman's purchase of the Hawaii property has not been previously reported. AdvertisementAnnie had been unaware that her oldest brother owned property in Hawaii until Business Insider asked her about it, she said. A $27 million San Francisco homeAltman's weekday residence is a home on San Francisco's Russian Hill that was once described — inaccurately — as the most expensive home in San Francisco.

Persons: Sam Altman, Altman, —, OpenAI, he's, He's, Sam Altman's, King Kamehameha I, King Kamehameha, Jennifer Serralta, Serralta, Jack, Max, — Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Marc Benioff, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Annie Altman, Annie, Sam's, Napa Altman, Cade Metz, Bob Dickinson Organizations: Service, Business, Bloomberg Tech Summit, Wall Street Journal, YouTube, Altman, LinkedIn, Apollo, Opportunity Fund, Silicon Valley, Business Insider, San, SEC, 9Point Ventures, Uncommon Ventures, New York Times, Capital Management, San Francisco Chronicle, New Yorker, Israeli Defense Force, Tesla Locations: San Francisco, Napa, Hawaii, Napa , California, Sam Altman's Hawaii, Kailua, Kona, wakesurfing, Kauai, Lanai, San, Russian, California, Hollywood, Big Sur

In a blog post, Mr. Altman, who was rapidly reinstated last week, also outlined his priorities for OpenAI as he retakes the reins of the high-profile artificial intelligence start-up. He added that its board would focus on improving governance and overseeing an independent review of the events that led to and followed his removal as chief executive. Microsoft expands a three-person board that OpenAI announced last week. Microsoft will be able to participate in OpenAI’s board meetings but not vote on business decisions. “Part of what good governance means is that there’s more predictability, transparency and input from various stakeholders, and this seemed like a good way to get that from a very important one,” Mr. Altman said in an interview, referring to Microsoft.

Persons: OpenAI, Sam Altman, Altman, Mr Organizations: Microsoft

Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicThe board of OpenAI, the maker of the ChatGPT chatbot and one of the world’s highest-profile artificial intelligence companies, reversed course late last night and brought back Sam Altman as chief executive. Cade Metz, a technology reporter for The Times, discusses a whirlwind five days at the company and analyzes what the fallout could mean for the future of the transformational technology.

Persons: Sam Altman, Cade Metz Organizations: Spotify, The Times

For much of the past year, OpenAI’s board of directors has been criticized as too small and too divided to effectively govern one of the fastest-growing start-ups in Silicon Valley history. On Friday, the board’s dysfunction spilled into public view when four of its members fired Sam Altman, OpenAI’s popular and powerful chief executive. Mr. Altman, 38, returned to the company on Tuesday night, after days of haggling over his job and over the makeup of the board. The board and Mr. Altman’s allies discussed more than a half dozen options for its future. The departing board wanted to be sure the replacements would be independent thinkers and experienced enough to stand up to Mr. Altman.

Persons: Sam Altman, OpenAI’s, Altman, Altman’s, Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs, Brian Chesky Organizations: Emerson Locations: Silicon Valley

More board members, who could be plucked from OpenAI’s biggest investor, Microsoft, and the A.I. Mr. Altman was not named to the board on Tuesday night, and it was not clear if he ever will be. But some already argue that it will not be as attuned to OpenAI’s original mission to create A.I. The tech industry — perhaps even the world — will be watching to see if OpenAI is any closer to balancing those dueling aspirations than it was a week ago. “This needs to be a trustworthy organization that’s aligned with its board, and at the end of it all, OpenAI is a more valuable organization than it was a week ago.”

Persons: Altman, ”, Aaron Levie Organizations: Microsoft

Sam Altman was reinstated late Tuesday as OpenAI’s chief executive, the company said, successfully reversing his ouster by the company’s board last week after a campaign waged by his allies, employees and investors. The board of directors will be overhauled, jettisoning several members who had opposed Mr. Altman. Adam D’Angelo, the chief executive of Quora, will be the only holdover. “We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D’Angelo,” OpenAI said in a post to X. “We are collaborating to figure out the details.

Persons: Sam Altman, Altman, Adam D’Angelo, Sam, Bret Taylor, Larry Summers, ” OpenAI, Greg Brockman, upended Organizations: Quora

Nearly all of OpenAI’s 800 employees have threatened to follow Mr. Altman to Microsoft, which asked him to lead an A.I. lab with Greg Brockman, who quit his roles as OpenAI’s president and board chairman in solidarity with Mr. Altman. The board has not said what it thought Mr. Altman was not being honest about. There were indications that the board was still open to his return, as it and Mr. Altman held discussions that extended into Tuesday, two people familiar with the talks said. But there was a sticking point: Mr. Altman rejected some of the guardrails that had been proposed to improve his communication with the board.

Persons: OpenAI, Altman, Greg Brockman, Brockman Organizations: Microsoft

OpenAI’s four-person board shocked the tech industry early Friday afternoon when it removed Mr. Altman, saying they could no longer trust him. One of the board members who pushed out Mr. Altman then reversed course on Monday and signed the letter demanding that he be reinstated. The decision by the board set off a frantic weekend of unexpected corporate jockeying that ended with Mr. Altman joining Microsoft to start a new A.I. By early Monday morning, the 700 employees had signed the letter, according to three people familiar with the matter. The upheaval leaves the future of one of the fastest-growing companies in Silicon Valley history in doubt.

Persons: Sam Altman, Altman Organizations: Microsoft, Mr Locations: Silicon Valley

The board of directors of OpenAI, the high-flying artificial intelligence start-up, said in a note to employees on Sunday night that its former chief, Sam Altman, would not be returning to his job, while naming his second interim replacement in two days. Emmett Shear, the former chief executive of Twitch, will replace Mira Murati as interim chief executive of OpenAI, the board said. Ms. Murati, a longtime OpenAI executive, had been appointed to that role after Mr. Altman’s ouster on Friday. The board said Mr. Shear has a “unique mix of skills, expertise and relationships that will drive OpenAI forward,” according to the memo viewed by The New York Times. It was signed by each of the four directors on the company’s board; Adam D’Angelo, Helen Toner, Ilya Sutskever, and Tasha McCauley.

Persons: Sam Altman, Emmett Shear, Twitch, Mira Murati, Murati, Altman’s, Shear, ”, Adam D’Angelo, Helen Toner, Ilya Sutskever, Tasha McCauley, “ Organizations: OpenAI, The New York Times

Talks at OpenAI to bring back Sam Altman, the artificial intelligence start-up’s recently ousted chief executive, continued on Sunday afternoon but there were disagreements over the makeup of the company’s board of directors, according to two people familiar with the discussions. Mr. Altman, 38, spent the weekend waging a pressure campaign on the start-up’s four-person board of directors who ousted him on Friday afternoon, three people familiar with the matter said. The result was a groundswell of support from investors, employees and OpenAI executives. Mr. Altman was at the OpenAI headquarters on Sunday afternoon. Members of the board have not yet agreed to what a restructured board of directors might look like — nor is Mr. Altman’s reinstatement an inevitability, two of the people said.

Persons: Sam Altman, up’s, Altman, “

Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, two top executives at OpenAI who left the company after a dramatic board meeting on Friday, are talking again with board members about returning to the artificial intelligence start-up, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The discussions follow an outcry after Mr. Altman, 38, was ousted from his role as OpenAI’s chief executive. Since then, OpenAI’s investors and Mr. Altman’s supporters have pressured the board members of the start-up to bring Mr. Altman back, six people with knowledge of the situation said. There is no guarantee that Mr. Altman or Mr. Brockman will be reinstated at OpenAI, the people said. work is done — the company’s investors have no official say in what happens to the start-up or who leads it.

Persons: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Altman, Altman’s, Brockman Organizations: OpenAI, Microsoft Locations: OpenAI

Mr. Altman plans to launch the initiative with his longtime partner and co-founder Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s former president who stepped down in solidarity with Mr. Altman on Friday, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plans for the new company are not yet public. Details on the potential company are scarce, because Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman are still working through what it will be. Plans could change quickly, as the pair are keeping a wide range of options open, the sources said. OpenAI’s board of directors shocked the tech industry on Friday when it abruptly fired Mr. Altman from his position as chief executive. By Friday night, the two men were already working on their plans to pitch investors on their next venture.

Persons: Sam Altman, Altman, Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s, Brockman Organizations: OpenAI

☆ The Fear and Tension That Led to Sam Altman’s Ouster at OpenAI
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-18 | by ( Cade Metz | More About Cade Metz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Over the last year, Sam Altman led OpenAI to the adult table of the technology industry. safety came into focus on Friday afternoon, when Mr. Altman was pushed out of his job by four of OpenAI’s six board members, led by Mr. Sutskever. The move shocked OpenAI employees and the rest of the tech industry, including Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion in the company. The ouster of Mr. Altman, 38, drew attention to a longtime rift in the A.I. And the ouster showed how a philosophical movement devoted to the fear of A.I.

Persons: Sam Altman, OpenAI, Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Sutskever, Steve Jobs, Mr Organizations: Microsoft, Apple Locations: San Francisco

☆ Meet Mira Murati, the Engineer Now Leading OpenAI
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-17 | by ( Tripp Mickle | Cade Metz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For years, Mira Murati has worked behind the scenes at OpenAI, overseeing the development and delivery of revolutionary products such as ChatGPT and DALL-E. Now, she is stepping into the limelight as its interim chief executive. Ms. Murati, 34, was elevated to the top position at the high-profile company on Friday when OpenAI’s board of directors ousted Sam Altman, the company’s co-founder and chief executive. She also handled the company’s relationship with Microsoft, an investor and partner who has deployed OpenAI’s technology, and she helped shape its artificial intelligence policy in Washington and Europe. “She has a demonstrated ability to assemble teams with technical expertise, commercial acumen and a deep appreciation for the importance of mission,” Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, wrote in a piece about her for Time magazine. “As a result, Mira has helped build some of the most exciting A.I.

Persons: Mira Murati, Murati, Sam Altman, Satya Nadella, Mira, ” Organizations: Microsoft, Time Locations: Washington, Europe

☆ OpenAI’s Board Pushes Out Sam Altman, Its High-Profile C.E.O.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-17 | by ( Cade Metz | More About Cade Metz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Sam Altman, the high-profile chief executive of OpenAI, who became the face of the tech industry’s artificial intelligence boom, has been pushed out of the company by its board of directors, OpenAI said in a blog post on Friday afternoon. Mira Murati, who previously served as the company’s chief technology officer, has been named interim chief executive officer, the company said. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities,” the company said. “The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.”The move is a stunning fall for Mr. Altman, 38, who over the last year had become one of the tech industry’s most prominent executives as well as one of its most fascinating characters. Last fall, OpenAI launched an industrywide A.I.

Persons: Sam Altman, OpenAI, Mira Murati, “ Mr, Altman Organizations: Mr

☆ OpenAI Lets Mom-and-Pop Shops Customize ChatGPT
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-06 | by ( Cade Metz | More About Cade Metz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

OpenAI said on Monday that it had created a service that allows individuals and small businesses to build customized versions of its popular online chatbot, ChatGPT, and instantly share them on the internet. Through a new service called GPTs, anyone can quickly customize the chatbot for a particular task without help from additional software or computer code. The owner of a small bed-and-breakfast, for instance, could build a chatbot that answers questions for anyone who stays there. OpenAI, the San Francisco artificial intelligence start-up, has accelerated the release of its A.I. In September, it folded its DALL-E image generator into ChatGPT and released a new version of its popular chatbot that interacts with people using spoken words, much like Apple’s Siri digital assistant.

Persons: OpenAI, ” Peter Deng, Siri Locations: San Francisco

☆ Chatbots May ‘Hallucinate’ More Often Than Many Realize
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-06 | by ( Cade Metz | More About Cade Metz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

But most people were slow to realize that this new kind of chatbot often makes things up. When Google introduced a similar chatbot several weeks later, it spewed nonsense about the James Webb telescope. The next day, Microsoft’s new Bing chatbot offered up all sorts of bogus information about the Gap, Mexican nightlife and the singer Billie Eilish. Now a new start-up called Vectara, founded by former Google employees, is trying to figure out how often chatbots veer from the truth. The company’s research estimates that even in situations designed to prevent it from happening, chatbots invent information at least 3 percent of the time — and as high as 27 percent.

Persons: OpenAI, James Webb, Bing chatbot, Billie Eilish, ChatGPT Organizations: Google Locations: San Francisco, Manhattan

Two months ago, Kyle Vogt, the chief executive of Cruise, choked up as he recounted how a driver killed a 4-year-old girl in a stroller at a San Francisco intersection. I get emotional.”To make streets safer, he said in an interview, cities should embrace self-driving cars like those designed by Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors. Now Mr. Vogt’s driverless car company faces its own safety concerns as he contends with angry regulators, anxious employees and skepticism about his management and the viability of a business that he has often said will save lives while generating billions of dollars. On Oct. 2, a car hit a woman in a San Francisco intersection and flung her into the path of one of Cruise’s driverless taxis. The Cruise car ran over her, briefly stopped, and then dragged her some 20 feet before pulling to the curb, causing severe injuries.

Persons: Kyle Vogt, Cruise, ”, “, Vogt’s Organizations: General Motors Locations: San Francisco

☆ OpenAI in Talks for Deal That Would Value Company at $80 Billion
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-20 | by ( Cade Metz | More About Cade Metz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

OpenAI is in talks to complete a deal that would value the company at $80 billion or more, nearly triple its valuation less than six months ago, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions. The company would sell existing shares in a so-called tender offer led by the venture firm Thrive Capital that would make OpenAI the most valuable start-up in San Francisco, that person said. Amazon said last month that it would invest up to $4 billion in another San Francisco start-up, Anthropic, one of OpenAI’s primary competitors. Over the summer, Cohere, a company founded by former Google researchers, raised $270 million, bringing its total funding to more than $440 million. Inflection AI, founded by a former Google executive, raised a $1.3 billion round, bringing its total to $1.5 billion.

Persons: OpenAI, Amazon Organizations: Google Locations: San Francisco

☆ Researchers Say Guardrails Built Around A.I. Systems Are Not So Sturdy
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-19 | by ( Cade Metz | More About Cade Metz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

chatbot ChatGPT last year, the San Francisco start-up OpenAI added digital guardrails meant to prevent its system from doing things like generating hate speech and disinformation. Now a paper from researchers at Princeton, Virginia Tech, Stanford and IBM says those guardrails aren’t as sturdy as A.I. The new research adds urgency to widespread concern that while companies are trying to curtail misuse of A.I., they are overlooking ways it can still generate harmful material. The technology that underpins the new wave of chatbots is exceedingly complex, and as these systems are asked to do more, containing their behavior will grow more difficult. for good uses and keep its unlawful uses behind a locked door,” said Scott Emmons, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in this kind of technology.

Persons: chatbot ChatGPT, Bard, ”, Scott Emmons Organizations: Princeton, Virginia Tech, Stanford, IBM, Companies, University of California Locations: San Francisco, Berkeley

In a WhatsApp text conversation this week, we asked Jane Austen — yes, the 19th-century British author — how she felt about Mr. Darcy, a character from one of her most famous works, “Pride and Prejudice.”After a few seconds, Ms. Austen responded. “Ah, Mr. Darcy. Everyone remembers him as one of my characters,” she said, her face appearing in a small window above our conversation. But a modern interpretation of her likeness was used by Meta, which owns WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, as part of an artificially intelligent character that could chat across the company’s messaging apps. Characters based on other people’s likenesses — including the former quarterback Tom Brady, the social media influencers Mr.

Persons: Jane Austen —, —, Darcy, “, ”, Austen, “ Ah, Tom Brady, Charlie D’Amelio, Snoop Dogg, Microsoft’s Bing Organizations: Meta, Facebook

Search resuls for: "Cade Metz"

25 mentions found