Ilya Sutskever, the co-founder and chief scientist of OpenAI’s for-profit division, who played a role in temporarily removing CEO Sam Altman last year, has decided to leave the artificial intelligence (AI) company.
In a post on May 14, Sutskever announced his departure from OpenAI after almost a decade, stating that he intends to pursue a project that holds personal significance to him. He expressed confidence in the firm’s ability to develop a safe and beneficial artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Altman confirmed the departure on the same platform, stating that Sutskever and OpenAI will be parting ways, and acknowledging that the former chief scientist has a personally meaningful project to work on.
OpenAI has announced Jakub Pachocki as its new chief scientist. Pachocki, who has been the firm’s director of research since 2017, led the development of the GPT-4 large language model.
Sutskever was involved in a successful effort by OpenAI’s board to temporarily remove Altman as CEO in November of last year. However, Altman was later reinstated in response to employee backlash. At the time, Sutskever, one of the six board members of nonprofit OpenAI Inc., reportedly informed employees that Altman’s removal was necessary to ensure the development of AGI that benefits humanity. However, Sutskever later expressed regret for his participation in the board’s actions in a November post.
Following Altman’s return, Sutskever stepped down from OpenAI’s board, leaving his role at the company unclear. This led to speculation and the creation of the meme template “Where is Ilya?” questioning his position at OpenAI.
AGI refers to a hypothetical form of artificial intelligence capable of performing tasks at least as well as humans. Altman has previously stated that he is willing to spend significant amounts, even $50 billion per year, to develop AGI, regardless of the cost. However, others, including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, have called for a cautious approach to the development of intelligent AI, citing unknown risks.
(Note: The article has been updated to provide additional information.)