Ahead of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s 4 days in exile, several staff researchers sent the board of directors a letter warning of a robust artificial intelligence discovery that they said could threaten humanity, two people conversant in the matter told Reuters.
The previously unreported letter and AI algorithm was a catalyst that caused the board to oust Altman, the poster child of generative AI, the 2 sources said.
Before his triumphant return late Tuesday, greater than 700 employees had threatened to quit and join backer Microsoft in solidarity with their fired leader.
The sources cited the letter as one factor amongst an extended list of grievances by the board that led to Altman’s firing.
Reuters was unable to review a replica of the letter.
The researchers who wrote the letter didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment.
OpenAI declined to comment.
In line with one among the sources, long-time executive Mira Murati mentioned the project, called Q*, to employees on Wednesday and said that a letter was sent to the board prior to this weekend’s events.
After the story was published, an OpenAI spokesperson said Murati told employees what the media reports were about but she didn’t comment on the accuracy of the knowledge.
The maker of ChatGPT had made progress on Q* (pronounced Q-Star), which some internally consider might be a breakthrough within the startup’s seek for superintelligence, also often known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), one among the people told Reuters. OpenAI defines AGI as AI systems which might be smarter than humans.
Given vast computing resources, the brand new model was in a position to solve certain mathematical problems, the person said on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk on behalf of the corporate.
Though only performing math on the extent of grade-school students, acing such tests made researchers very optimistic about Q*’s future success, the source said.
Reuters couldn’t independently confirm the capabilities of Q* claimed by the researchers.
(This story has been corrected to state that Sam Altman’s firing occurred after a letter was sent to the board, not attributable to the letter, within the headline and paragraph 5)
Anna Tong and Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco and Krystal Hu in Recent York; Editing by Kenneth Li and Lisa Shumaker
