A former OpenAI leader who resigned from the company earlier this week said Friday that safety has "taken a backseat to shiny products" at the influential artificial intelligence company.
Jan Leike, who ran OpenAI's "Superalignment" team alongside a company co-founder who also resigned this week, wrote in a series of posts on the social media platform X that he joined the San Francisco-based company because he thought it would be the best place to do AI research.
"However, I have been disagreeing with OpenAI leadership about the company's core priorities for quite some time, until we finally reached a breaking point," wrote Leike, whose last day was Thursday.
An AI researcher by training, Leike said he believes there should be more focus on preparing for the next generation of AI models, including on things like safety and analyzing the societal impacts of such technologies. He said building "smarter-than-human machines is an inherently dangerous endeavor" and that the company "is shouldering an enormous responsibility on behalf of all of humanity."
"OpenAI must become a safety-first AGI company," wrote Leike, using the abbreviated version of artificial general intelligence, a futuristic vision of machines that are as broadly smart as humans or at least can do many things as well as people can.
Open AI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a reply to Leike's posts that he was "super appreciative" of Leike's contributions to the company was "very sad to see him leave."
Leike is "right we have a lot more to do; we are committed to doing it," Altman said, pledging to write a longer post on the subject in the coming days.
The company also confirmed Friday that it had disbanded Leike's Superalignment team, which was launched last year to focus on AI risks, and is integrating the team's members across its research efforts.
Leike's resignation came after OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever said Tuesday that he was leaving the company after nearly a decade. Sutskever was one of four board members last fall who voted to push out Altman — only to quickly reinstate him. It was Sutskever who told Altman last November that he was being fired, but he later said he regretted doing so.
Sutskever said he is working on a new project that's meaningful to him without offering additional details. He will be replaced by Jakub Pachocki as chief scientist. Altman called Pachocki "also easily one of the greatest minds of our generation" and said he is "very confident he will lead us to make rapid and safe progress towards our mission of ensuring that AGI benefits everyone."
On Monday, OpenAI showed off the latest update to its artificial intelligence model, which can mimic human cadences in its verbal responses and can even try to detect people's moods.
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More