OpenAI Co-Founder Ilya Sutskever Launches Rival AI Start-Up

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Facts

• Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI co-founder and its former chief scientist, has announced that he is founding a new artificial intelligence (AI) start-up, dubbed Safe Superintelligence.¹
• In a statement on X (formerly Twitter), Sutskever said Safe Superintelligence's 'sole focus' is to create superintelligence — AI with greater intellectual capacities than human beings.²
• Sutskever is joined by Daniel Gross, former AI lead at Apple, and a former OpenAI staffer, Daniel Levy. Last year, he led a push to oust OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman before leaving in May.³
• Though he didn't disclose his venture's financial backers, Sutskever said it would be 'fully insulated from the outside pressures' due to their singular focus.⁴
• This comes after former OpenAI staffers Dario Amodei and Jan Leike founded OpenAI rival Anthropic. Leike departed OpenAI after alleging that its safety had 'taken a back seat to shiny products.'²
• Safe Superintelligence hasn't revealed its business model, while OpenAI is structured as a non-profit with a for-profit, commercial subsidiary.⁵

Sources: ¹New York Times, ²Ft, ³Verge, ⁴Bloomberg and ⁵Axios.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by TechCrunch. Given that OpenAI possesses some of the most powerful AI tools available, the fact that so many insiders have jumped ship over safety concerns should give the public a major pause. OpenAI has also replaced many safety teams with ineffective, rubber-stamp committees. It's apparent that AI is developing at breakneck speed and it's imperative to proceed with the utmost caution.
• Narrative B, as provided by Interesting Engineering. No one has better insight into AI safety than the industry leader in AI. As the first company to launch mass-market AI products, OpenAI has had the time and experience required to fine-tune its products and keep up with concerns. Instead of focusing on sci-fi dreams of a hypothetical superintelligent system, OpenAI remains committed to keeping the public safe in the real world.

Predictions