Ousted boss of OpenAI, Sam Altman, has said his and Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella’s top priority “remains to ensure OpenAI continues to thrive”.
Microsoft has hired Mr Altman after he was abruptly fired as CEO of the artificial intelligence (AI) company that created ChatGPT, the game-changing generative chatbot used by millions of people.
The US tech giant has been a close partner of OpenAI and has already invested billions of dollars in it.
It comes as more than 500 employees of OpenAI have said they will leave if Mr Altman is not reinstated and the board does not resign.
Mr Altman was sacked by the not-for-profit company’s board on Friday, declaring he “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board”.
US media outlets reported that Altman was pushed out of the company because of disagreements over the safety of AI.
The company’s interim chief executive Emmett Shear denied this writing on X, formerly twitter: “The board did *not* remove Sam over any specific disagreement on safety, their reasoning was completely different from that.”
On Monday morning, Mr Altman and company president Greg Brockman were hired by Microsoft to work on a new advanced AI research project.
Mr Altman wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that he and Mr Nadella “are committed to fully providing continuity of operations to our partners and customers. The OpenAI/Microsoft partnership makes this very doable”.
In an earlier post, Mr Altman wrote: “We have more unity and commitment and focus than ever before. We are all going to work together in some way or another, and I’m so excited. One team, one mission.”
Mr Brockman, who quit after Mr Altman was fired from OpenAI, posted on Monday: “We are going to build something new and it will be incredible.”
