The chaos at OpenAI continues

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Welcome back, Superhuman

The chaos at OpenAI is well and truly beyond belief, as the fallout from the firing of CEO Sam Altman and his new replacement continues. We’ve got the full details on what went down yesterday - and what’s next - in today’s email.

TODAY’S MENU

• The Chaos at OpenAI: Key events from the last 24 hours

• The Chaos at OpenAI: What happens next

• Tutorial: How to find prompts for your job

• Today’s Meme: Salesforce CEO tries to recruit OpenAI engineer

• AI Generated Image: Cloud Couture

THE CHAOS AT OPENAI

Employees threaten to resign, rivals try to capitalize, customers may leave, and more

There are years where nothing happens, and then there are days where a year’s worth of drama happens. Yesterday was another emotional rollercoaster for everyone at OpenAI and the technology industry, as one piece of shocking news followed another.

Here’s a summary of all the key events from yesterday:

• 700+ out of the roughly 770 employees at OpenAI threatened to quit if the board doesn’t resign.

• The Verge broke the news that Sam Altman is still trying to rejoin OpenAI as CEO.

• Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also said in an interview that he is open to the option of Altman returning to OpenAI. Microsoft is OpenAI’s biggest investor.

• Perhaps the most shocking news of the day was that OpenAI’s board had reportedly approached rival Anthropic with a proposition to merge both companies.

• Another report claimed that OpenAI’s customers are considering moving to rivals Anthropic and Google.

• Reuters claimed that OpenAI investors are considering suing the board.

• Rivals scrambled to attract departing OpenAI employees as Elon Musk and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff made moves to hire them.

• Senior Silicon Valley figures like Vinod Khosla and Balaji Srinivasan accused the board of being under the influence of effective altruism, a school of philosophy that allegedly wants to slow down AI progress.

Despite significant new twists and turns in the past 24 hours, OpenAI’s future still hangs in the balance. Today looks set to be another tense 24 hours for the company, its employees and its customers.

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THE CHAOS AT OPENAI

What’s Next: The fight for AI’s future

The situation at OpenAI is one of the most complex and potentially explosive episodes in the history of the tech industry, with multiple powerful stakeholders and hundreds of billions of dollars of value on the line.

As we move into another day of high stakes and higher drama, these are a few key themes that we’ll be keeping an eye on.

What happens to ChatGPT and other OpenAI products: As the threat of mass resignations looms over the company, it’s not entirely clear how OpenAI will keep its products running. Many professionals who rely on the company’s products for their jobs - as well as companies that use OpenAI’s APIs - face the scary prospect of waking up one day without a functioning service.

Where the OpenAI team ends up: As several key employees resigned and many others threaten to resign, the destination of some of the most sought-after minds in AI remains uncertain. Tech titans like Elon Musk and Marc Benioff are already making a public play to hire the departing employees. And although many OpenAI employees are threatening to leave for Microsoft, some are not convinced that they’ll end up staying there long term.

The battle for the future of AI: The last few days have shown an open schism between 2 philosophical camps in AI: accelerationists who believe that general artificial intelligence (AGI) will bring a new age of progress, and effective altruists who want to slow down AI progress to assess the supposed risks. The fight for control over OpenAI is also a fight to see which philosophy prevails over the future development of AI.

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TUTORIAL

How to find ChatGPT prompts for your job

Not sure how to use ChatGPT for your job? Try the following prompt:

I am a [insert your profession]. Give me 50 ChatGPT prompts that can help me be more productive in my job.

ChatGPT is great for generating text, but you can also upload spreadsheets and images to run prompts and get more done at work.

TODAY’S MEME

Salesforce CEO tries to hire OpenAI engineer

AI GENERATED IMAGES

Cloud Couture

Prompt: a model wearing a colorful cloud coat, in the style of hyperrealistic details, swiss style, snow scenes, pastel color scheme, piles/stacks, unmodulated color, avacadopunk 

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Thanks for reading.

Until next time!

Zain

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