OpenAI declared on Tuesday that Sam Altman is set to resume his role as CEO, a few days following his unexpected removal, which had thrown the groundbreaking artificial intelligence company into turmoil.
Following Altman’s dramatic exit on Friday, influential investors, including technology behemoth Microsoft, engaged in intense lobbying efforts to secure his return to OpenAI.
A letter, released to the media, revealed that hundreds of OpenAI staff were poised to quit, insisting on the board’s resignation amid widespread speculation about the company’s future.
OpenAI wrote on X that it ‘reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D’Angelo.’
‘We are collaborating to figure out the details.’
This week, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, shared the news of Altman’s hiring to lead an AI research team.
Altman, on Tuesday, confirmed that Nadella is supporting his return.
Read also: OpenAI Personnel Mulls Joining Ex-CEO Altman In Mass Exodus
OpenAI has benefited from Microsoft’s multi-billion-dollar investment, with the infusion of its technology into various products, notably the search engine Bing.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT owes much of its development success to the pivotal role played by Microsoft’s data centers, setting off a global race in AI research and development marked by multi-billion-dollar investments.
Nadella had said that “governance changes” were needed at OpenAI to avoid such disruptive surprises.
‘We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board,’ the Microsoft CEO said on X Tuesday.
‘We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance.’
The latest announcement appeared to bring to an end the rollercoaster of events triggered by Altman’s firing last week.
The decision to dismiss Altman was reaffirmed on Sunday by the OpenAI board, which includes the highly respected AI researcher and company co-founder Ilya Sutskever, with Emmett Shear appointed as interim CEO.
But this had limited success in calming the dissatisfaction within the company or assuaging the concerns among OpenAI’s investors.
Sutskever, along with others, signed the letter from OpenAI’s employees that called for the board’s removal.
‘I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions,’ he wrote on X on Monday. ‘I never intended to harm OpenAI.’
Platforms like ChatGPT, belonging to the category of generative AI, undergo training on extensive datasets to empower them to respond to questions, even those of a complex nature, using language that mimics human expression.
They are also employed for the creation and manipulation of images.