Microsoft has appointed Sam Altman, the co-founder and former CEO of OpenAI, to lead a new advanced AI research team within the company. This news comes after his sudden dismissal from OpenAI last Friday. Altman will be joined by Greg Brockman, another co-founder of OpenAI, in leading the new AI research team at Microsoft.
Following this announcement, Emmett Shear, the former Twitch boss, has agreed to take charge of OpenAI on an interim basis. Shear made this decision in just a few hours after receiving an invitation to what he described as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The board of directors of OpenAI cited Altman’s lack of transparency in his communication with them as the reason for his dismissal. This hindered their ability to perform their responsibilities effectively.
Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and integrated its technology into its own products such as the Bing search engine. With Altman and Brockman now joining Microsoft to lead the new advanced AI research team, the partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI continues, and Microsoft remains confident in its product roadmap and ability to innovate.
OpenAI’s development of ChatGPT artificial intelligence platform was a significant milestone in the field of artificial intelligence and accelerated the race for AI innovation among major tech companies. Generative artificial intelligence has been compared to the arrival of the internet and is seen as a revolutionary advancement in creating ideas, content, images, and sounds.
Regarding Altman’s dismissal, the board of directors cited his lack of transparency in communication as the reason for his firing. The company plans to conduct an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding Altman’s termination within 30 days to shed light on what happened. Elon Musk jokingly responded to this news by saying “Now they will have to use Teams!” referring to Microsoft Teams platform.