Sam Altman’s overthrow was precipitated by discovery of AI that could threaten humanity: sources

Ahead of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s four-day exile, several researchers sent the board a letter warning of a powerful artificial intelligence discovery that they said could threaten humanity, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The issue.

The previously unreported letter and AI algorithm were a catalyst that caused the board to oust Altman, the poster boy for generative AI, the two sources said.

Before his triumphant return on Tuesday night, more than 700 employees had threatened to quit and join sponsor Microsoft in solidarity with their fired leader.

Sources cited the letter as one factor among a longer list of board complaints that led to Altman’s firing.

Reuters was unable to review a copy of the letter.

The researchers who wrote the letter did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

OpenAI declined to comment.

According to one of the sources, longtime executive Mira Murati told employees Wednesday that a letter about the AI ​​breakthrough, called Q* (pronounced Q-Star), precipitated the board’s actions.

The maker of ChatGPT had made progress in Q*, which some internally believe could be a breakthrough in the startup’s quest for superintelligence, also known as artificial general intelligence, one of the people told Reuters.

OpenAI defines AGI as AI systems that are smarter than humans.

Thanks to enormous computing resources, the new model was able to solve certain mathematical problems, the person said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the company.

Although they only performed math at the level of elementary school students, passing those tests made the researchers very optimistic about Q*’s future success, the source said.

Reuters could not independently verify the Q* capabilities claimed by the researchers.