Sam Altman was fired by OpenAI’s board on Friday.
Ahead of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s four days in exile, several senior 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 Portal.
The previously unreported letter and AI algorithm were a catalyst for the board ousting Altman, the poster boy of generative AI, the two sources said. Before his triumphant return late Tuesday, more than 700 employees had threatened to quit in solidarity with their fired boss and join supporter Microsoft.
The sources cited the letter as one factor in a lengthy list of board complaints that led to Altman’s firing. Portal was not able to verify 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 on Wednesday that a letter about the AI breakthrough called Q* (pronounced Q-Star) had accelerated the board’s actions.
The maker of ChatGPT has made progress on Q* that some internally believe could represent a breakthrough in the startup’s quest for superintelligence, also known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), one of the people told Portal. OpenAI defines AGI as AI systems that are smarter than humans.
Given the huge computing resources, the new model is capable of solving certain mathematical problems, the person said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the company. Although only math performance was at elementary school students’ level, passing such tests made researchers very optimistic about Q*’s future success, the source said.
Portal could not independently verify Q*’s claimed capabilities.
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Originally posted 2023-11-23 09:32:23.