The chaos at OpenAI comes to an end

ALSO: A new board emerges, but some questions remain unanswered

Author

Zain Kahn
November 22, 2023

Read time: 2.5 minutes

Welcome back, Superhuman

5 days, 2 new CEOs and countless resignations later, the chaos at OpenAI finally seems to be coming to an end. Sam Altman is back as CEO, and so are the rest of the employees who left with him. There’s also a new board in place. But things look far from over as some questions still remain unanswered.

TODAY’S MENU

  • The chaos at OpenAI is coming to an end

  • ChatGPT goes down for many users amid OpenAI chaos

  • Funding Roundup: The biggest deals in AI this week

  • Tutorial: Create super photorealistic images in Midjourney

  • Meme of the Day: The events of the past 5 days

  • AI Generated Image: Mona Lisa by other artists

TODAY IN AI & TECH

Source: Getty Images

  • Guilty: Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao pleads guilty to money laundering charges. Binance to pay $4 Billion+ in fines.

  • Respect: OpenAI team somehow manages to launch a major new ChatGPT feature amid the chaos at the company.

  • Opportunistic: OpenAI rival Anthropic released a new version of their chatbot Claude that can now analyze 150,000 words in one prompt.

  • Trouble: Indian authorities accuse startup Byju of $1 Billion+ in violations.

  • Get Smart: Amazon launches 8 new free AI courses.

THE CHAOS AT OPENAI

Altman returns, a new board is formed and some questions remain unanswered

The OpenAI team reunites to celebrate. Source: Greg Brockman

New board, same old CEO. Sam Altman is back as CEO at OpenAI after 5 days of nerve-racking drama at arguably the biggest company in AI. There’s also a new board in place and departing employees are also returning.

Here’s what you need to know:

  • OpenAI made an announcement on their X account that they have reached “an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO.“

  • The company also announced that there’s a new “initial board” of Larry Summers, Adam D'Angelo and Bret Taylor as Chair.

  • According to the statement, details are still being figured out.

  • Cofounder Greg Brockman said he will also be returning to the company.

But some questions still remained unanswered. Here’s what reportedly went down behind the scenes:

  • Journalist Kara Swisher reported that there were tensions between board member Helen Toner and Sam Altman and some in the company wanted her off the board in the weeks prior.

  • Emily Chang from Bloomberg reported that Sam Altman wanted to be on the board and wanted Adam D’Angelo to step down. But for now, Altman stays off the board and D’Angelo stays on.

  • Chang expects Microsoft to get a seat on the board at some point.

  • Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky was involved in talks and played a role in finding a solution. Interim OpenAI CEO Emmett Shear also reportedly played a key role in negotiations.

While the situation seems like it’s coming to a conclusion, things seem far from done and dusted. There are reported tensions between Altman and D’Angelo. And it’s not certain what the final shape of the board will look like, as more members may be added.

But the biggest question still remains unanswered: what happened between the board and Altman in the lead up to his firing?

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THE CHAOS AT OPENAI

ChatGPT goes down amid OpenAI chaos

Image: Reuters

As the drama and chaos from OpenAI spilled into its 5th day, ChatGPT has apparently begun to feel the heat. According to social media posts, several users reported receiving error messages when trying to use the app. The website DownDetector also shows an increase in outages reported yesterday.

A member from OpenAI’s developer relations team confirmed the outage in a social media post and said that the team was working on a fix.

ChatGPT experienced a major outage a few weeks back due to an alleged DDoS attack that tried to overwhelm its servers.

Amid the chaotic events at OpenAI, The Information reported that some of the company’s customers are evaluating alternatives to OpenAI and are considering a move to rivals such as Google and Anthropic.

As of the writing of this email, ChatGPT was functioning normally for our team and the issue appears to have been resolved.

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FUNDING ROUNDUP

The Biggest Deals in AI This Week

  • Google in talks to invest in AI startup Character.AI. Read more →

  • Andreessen Horowitz backs Civitai, a generative AI content marketplace with millions of users. Read more →

  • OfferFit gets $25M to kill A/B testing for marketing with machine learning personalization. Read more →

TUTORIAL

How to create photorealistic images

Want to create hyper-realistic photos in Midjourney? Use the prompt below:

Prompt: photo of [your subject/object] --style 4yuG4HZyCHwGsXsx --ar 16:9

Here’s the result:

source: @ciguleva on X

MEME OF THE DAY

The events of the past 5 days

Source: Bojan Tunguz on X

AI GENERATED IMAGES

Mona Lisa by other artists

Source: u/thefinn_forthewin on Reddit

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