GLOSSARY: The Return of Altman

среда, 22 ноября 2023 г.

The Return of Altman

Can't read or see images? View this email in a browser

TAUSIF ALAM & AMIT RAJA NAIK

Wednesday, Nov 22, 2023 | Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here

___________________________________________________________

By now, y'all must be familiar with how the entire situation panned out. Yes, Sam Altman is back at OpenAI as its chief executive officer after the short-lived, high-voltage AI melodrama, alongside Brockman and other colleagues, who are now returning to the office amidst much fanfare.

“I love OpenAI, and everything I’ve done over the past few days has been in service of keeping this team and its mission together,” said Altman.

Altman returned to OpenAI building on their strong partnership with Microsoft, and aligned with the new board members. This includes Bret Taylor, Larry Summers, and Adam D’Angelo (old guard) – primarily men, and there seems to be no hope for the OpenAI-Anthropic merger, as well.

As part of the deal, it is said that both Altman and Brockman will not have seats on the company’s board. Altman has also agreed to an internal investigation into the reasons that led the board to oust him.

Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end here. There remain many questions about why all of this happened – was it driven by ego, petty personal issues, or fundamental disagreements about the future of AI? Nobody seems to know as of now.

There’s uncertainty around Emmett Shear as well, who was faced with a lack of concrete evidence regarding Sam's alleged misconduct. He, however, stepped in to help both sides find common ground, ultimately leading to a resolution.

On the bright side, seeing more than 95% of OpenAI showing solidarity in its leadership team was heartwarming – a rare gesture in the tech and AI landscape.

Despite all the noise, team OpenAI ensured that its customers were not impacted, showing the world that a company is nothing without its customers and people.

Check out all the latest developments around this, exclusively on AIM.

Now, for some non-OpenAI updates 😝

Indian IT & LGBTQ+ Inclusivity

The prevalence of LGBTQ+ networks has seen a substantial rise, with 82.5% of companies in the Most Inclusive Companies Index 2022 featuring such networks — a stark contrast to the less than 25% reported seven years ago. Indian IT companies are slowly warming up to breaking the stigma and introducing LGBTQ+ inclusive policies. Read more here.

Meta Wants to Build Generative AI, Responsibly

In the recent cautionary tale, Meta is doing a little bit of reshuffling, relocating its Responsible AI team to join the generative AI crew. The move comes off as misplaced, given the unfortunate events unfolding at Meta in the past few months. Read the full story here.

YOLO Security Flaws

A security audit of YOLO (You Only Look Once) object detection algorithms revealed major security vulnerabilities. Trail of Bits– a cybersecurity firm– claimed to have found 11 vulnerabilities in Yolo v7. If exploited, it could lead to compromised object detection, privacy breaches and safety risks, subsequently leading to far greater consequences. Learn more here.