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Microsoft AI

Microsoft Hires Ex-OpenAI Leaders Altman and Brockman To Lead New AI Group (techcrunch.com) 63

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Microsoft has hired OpenAI co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman to head up a "new advanced AI research team," the software conglomerate's chief Satya Nadella said Monday, capping three days of intense discussions following the unexpected decision by OpenAI's board to dismiss Altman. From a report: Many OpenAI members, including the co-founder Brockman, left the firm in protest last week. Altman will serve as the chief executive of the new AI group at Microsoft, Nadella said. "We've learned a lot over the years about how to give founders and innovators space to build independent identities and cultures within Microsoft, including GitHub, Mojang Studios, and LinkedIn, and I'm looking forward to having you do the same." Nadella said Altman and Brockman will be joined by "colleagues." Former OpenAI top talent Szymon Sidor, Jakub Pachocki, Aleksander Madry are joining Microsoft with "more" to follow suit, Brockman said in a post on X.
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Microsoft Hires Ex-OpenAI Leaders Altman and Brockman To Lead New AI Group More

Microsoft Hires Ex-OpenAI Leaders Altman and Brockman To Lead New AI Group

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  • They're going to make their own AI (Score:5, Funny)

    by Junta ( 36770 ) on Monday November 20, 2023 @07:56AM (#64017895)

    With hookers and black jack.

  • I guess tech journalists just post content massaged from microsoft corporate communications now.

    • Every time you've read that brand spanking new version Windows is exciting new technology, that's exactly what they've done. The rest of us dread anything new Microsoft comes up with.

      This is nothing new and it's been going on for decades.

  • Microsoft throwing good money after bad (Score:3)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Monday November 20, 2023 @08:29AM (#64017931)

    They paid $10bn for a bad chatbot, and now they're founding their very own AI division with the very man who conned them out of those billions - not to mention, if this move doesn't sour Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI, nothing will.

    • Nah, what MS are saying is âoewe still believe in what we bought, and weâ(TM)re going to slowly absorb OpenAI into MS under Altman, so that we can quietly reverse the boardâ(TM)s decision.â

    • Re:Microsoft throwing good money after bad (Score:4, Insightful)

      by coofercat ( 719737 ) on Monday November 20, 2023 @09:40AM (#64018117) Homepage Journal

      From Microsoft's point of view, they're in a bit of a difficult position. Whatever ChatGPT is or isn't, it definitely is leading the industry at it. It's also at the crest of the hype wave and it's seen as not only the first, but currently the best of the LLMs around.

      Leaving Altman to someone else would be a huge gamble. Under his time there, ChatGPT got released, and made a boat load of money. If he were able to do something similar somewhere else, then it could be bad news for Microsoft because they're currently something of a market leader in the field (which is unusual for MS - they're usually a follower rather than leader). Therefore, to hire him is sort of their best move - it'll cost them a load of money to see if he can spin something up there, but it keeps him off the market for anyone else to snap up. If he's good, then they win, if he's bad, then OpenAI wins, and Microsoft also wins (to a lesser degree). That said, OpenAI has just shed a load of its value, so they've got a lot of catching up to do.

      • ChatGPT hasn't "made money". To do that it would have to turn a profit. What it's done is generate a lot of revenue. But it's also generated a lot of expenditures. This is seen as offset by potential future earnings in terms of valuation. But "potential future earnings" is a prediction, not a reality. And it's a prediction made by people who have been wildly wrong about their past predictions and have no apparent expertise in making those predictions above and beyond the metaphorical monkey throwing darts a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Yes, that is pretty mich what is going on. So why is MS doing it? Are they stupid or incompetent? In the tech-space they are (they cannot even get basic stuff like updates to work reliably and forget about security), but in the business-space they are not. So why? My take is MS is at this time desperate to misdirect attention away from their abysmal failure with Win11, their basically complete Azure compromise due to abysmal incompetence and their continued inability to fix even basic problems. The new God

    • Why would Microsoft give a shit about "souring" their relationship with an organization that probably won't exist in a week due to their own monumentally stupid actions?

      If they do exist next week, that relationship will continue being governed by the terms of their contractual obligations.

      If they don't exist next week, that relationship will not exist either and Microsoft comes out ahead by not having to pay that bill any longer, while retaining the talent responsible for creating the technology behind that

  • Is Altman Evil or Good (Score:5, Interesting)

    by greytree ( 7124971 ) on Monday November 20, 2023 @08:39AM (#64017953)
    I understood from Musk leaving OpenAI that Altman made OpenAI closed and for-profit and was The Bad Guy.

    Then people defending him on Friday tried to imply he was restraining Open AI and was The Good Guy.

    Now he's working for Microsoft...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by boulat ( 216724 )

      Neither.

      Just incompetent.

    • Put him in a box, put a decaying element with him in the box and a vial of poison that gets released in case of decay.

      And when you open it, you know whether he's evil or dead.

    • I understood from Musk leaving OpenAI that Altman made OpenAI closed and for-profit and was The Bad Guy.

      Altman was fired because his sister claimed some issues with him. According to sister Annie:

      “I suffered from verbal, financial, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse from my biological siblings, primarily Sam Altman and some from Jack Altman.” https://thethaiger.com/world/n... [thethaiger.com]

      As noted, she has an OnlyFans account.

      Accusations are a dime a dozen today, and there should always be at the very minimum, some likely veracity. And there is something a little off about the order of abuse - exactly ho

      • I understood from Musk leaving OpenAI that Altman made OpenAI closed and for-profit and was The Bad Guy.

        Altman was fired because his sister claimed some issues with him. According to sister Annie:

        “I suffered from verbal, financial, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse from my biological siblings, primarily Sam Altman and some from Jack Altman.”
        https://thethaiger.com/world/n... [thethaiger.com]

        As noted, she has an OnlyFans account.

        Accusations are a dime a dozen today, and there should always be at the very minimum, some likely veracity. And there is something a little off about the order of abuse - exactly how old was he and his brother when they started financially abusing her? What does this financial abuse consist of? because the so called financial support problem apparently triggered the other allegations.

        I honestly haven't seen coverage outside of your posts, so I don't think it's that well covered nor played much of a role (if any) in his dismissal.

        As to her allegations? It's really hard to judge that kinda stuff from the outside. For instance, you see the "OnlyFans" account and kind of imply there's something sketchy about her. But child sexual abuse is a huge predictor for sex work [nih.gov].

        As for the other levels of abuse, those things probably go together, and there's probably some fluidity over things whether

        • I understood from Musk leaving OpenAI that Altman made OpenAI closed and for-profit and was The Bad Guy.

          Altman was fired because his sister claimed some issues with him. According to sister Annie:

          “I suffered from verbal, financial, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse from my biological siblings, primarily Sam Altman and some from Jack Altman.” https://thethaiger.com/world/n... [thethaiger.com]

          As noted, she has an OnlyFans account.

          Accusations are a dime a dozen today, and there should always be at the very minimum, some likely veracity. And there is something a little off about the order of abuse - exactly how old was he and his brother when they started financially abusing her? What does this financial abuse consist of? because the so called financial support problem apparently triggered the other allegations.

          I honestly haven't seen coverage outside of your posts, so I don't think it's that well covered nor played much of a role (if any) in his dismissal.

          As to her allegations? It's really hard to judge that kinda stuff from the outside. For instance, you see the "OnlyFans" account and kind of imply there's something sketchy about her. But child sexual abuse is a huge predictor for sex work [nih.gov].

          As for the other levels of abuse, those things probably go together, and there's probably some fluidity over things whether you think of a particular incident as someone being an a-hole and that person being emotionally abusive.

          Honestly, her story seems plausible and internally consistent [lesswrong.com]. Though it's also possible she's got serious emotional problems for unrelated reasons to Sam Altman and she's trying to get a big payoff from her rich brother. Again, really hard to judge from a few posts and media articles.

          Right - #believewomen, it is an incredible thing - that women are incapable of dissembling.

          What I want you to do, is go to 60 minutes Australia, then come back and tell me what you think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

          The long and short of it - woman accuses her fiance of rape, he gets sent to Oz's version of supermax. She then accuses his father, of stalking and assault. His family goes broke defending themselves. Further destroying an innocent family, the mother divorces her accused husband.

          Sh

          • Right - #believewomen, it is an incredible thing - that women are incapable of dissembling.

            It's incredible how you keep posting the same comment to Sam Altman stories trying to push your narrative.

            You know where I heard about the accusation? You. No one else seems to care one way or another.

            True or false this has not affected his employment.

            What I want you to do, is go to 60 minutes Australia, then come back and tell me what you think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

            What I want me to do is not waste a bunch of time with your obsession around false accusations.

            Yes, men are sometimes falsely accused of sexual misconduct, and this can have serious consequences.

            Also true, sometime men get away with sexual misconduct, mostly b

      • I actually read links. I read your link. It read like it was written in a High School "burn book" rather than by a journalist with an editor. I didn't recognize the name of the publication and the ledes of the articles in the side bar were... troubling. So I put the name of the publication into Wikipedia. What did I find?

        In July 2017, The Phuket Gazette Co. ceased operations.[2] The Phuket Gazette's digital assets were acquired by Digital Broker Ventures, a Thailand-based start up studio, who digitised the company – shifting everything online; a new website, Social Media presence, a YouTube channel, forum and mobile applications. In 2018, it was rebranded digitally as the of The Thaiger. The print newspaper was replaced with a daily email newsletter.[3]

        Ah. Grey washing. It's when a nefarious actor purchases a smaller but legitimate news source, strips it of all journalistic capacity, then wears its skin as an attempt to pass propaganda o

        • I actually read links. I read your link. It read like it was written in a High School "burn book" rather than by a journalist with an editor. I didn't recognize the name of the publication and the ledes of the articles in the side bar were... troubling. So I put the name of the publication into Wikipedia. What did I find?

          In July 2017, The Phuket Gazette Co. ceased operations.[2] The Phuket Gazette's digital assets were acquired by Digital Broker Ventures, a Thailand-based start up studio, who digitised the company – shifting everything online; a new website, Social Media presence, a YouTube channel, forum and mobile applications. In 2018, it was rebranded digitally as the of The Thaiger. The print newspaper was replaced with a daily email newsletter.[3]

          Ah. Grey washing. It's when a nefarious actor purchases a smaller but legitimate news source, strips it of all journalistic capacity, then wears its skin as an attempt to pass propaganda off as news. This entire website should be ignored by everyone. And you should be ignored for posting it.

          You can see her posts, preserved on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/consp... [reddit.com] However -You just did the equivalent of the "You mis-spelled a word, so your argument is wrong." Lame, lame, lame. But that's how you roll , I suppose.

          And you don't even follow your marching orders. Ignore me, or come back when you can make conversations with the adults. I suggest ignore. Of course, I have a strong suspicion that it is of utmost importance to you to have the last screech. I'll just ignore it, so do what makes

    • If he's "good" then Microsoft just scored a coup. If he's as "bad" as the board made him out to be, then he's going to bring that with him, and it's going to hurt Microsoft.

  • I didn't pay much attention to openai since you really could not say much about what they were actually doing. But, those two i am thinking had nothing at all to do with systems there while spearheading every wtf moment in the news concerning openai. Then microsoft seems to have some morbid agenda to undo everything bill gates done.

    • I didn't pay much attention to openai since you really could not say much about what they were actually doing. But, those two i am thinking had nothing at all to do with systems there while spearheading every wtf moment in the news concerning openai. Then microsoft seems to have some morbid agenda to undo everything bill gates done.

  • TV-show Silicon Valley ended waaaay too soon. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Henriok ( 6762 ) on Monday November 20, 2023 @09:12AM (#64018017)
    One of the TV-shows I really appreciated was HBO's Silicon Valley, whose scripts just continues to write themselves.

  • He would have been better off doing startup stuff himself. They'll let him go in 2-3 years. Prediction. It's usually about how long it takes them to wring whatever value they get out of external people.

    Oh well.

    • Souls don't buy things and without money freedom is academic.

    • And in that 2-3 years he'll stack up enough Microsoft options to fund a startup doing another idea that he didn't share with Microsoft due to knowing that this could be an outcome.

      Only fools get acquired and not have a plan 'b' for if the new owners are just as / more stupid than the last.

  • Score! Nice one for Altman (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Monday November 20, 2023 @10:39AM (#64018299)

    i don't know what the OpenAI were paying him to fuckoff, but it can't be inconsequential. Now he gets the great two-fer in the tech world. Severance and a job the next day.

    • Sure. Torpedo a guy on the basis of allegations for which there aren't even formal accusations. That sounds very 202x.

      • Congratulations, you just got played because you didn't even click the link.

        • I did click the link.

          "Despite the absence of any formal sexual assault allegations against Sam Altman at present..."

          What makes you think I didn't?

          • Because you think he was fired over that instead of the fact that he's consistently shown his ass in the media trying to drive a hype train.

    • That link doesn't lead to a news source. The Thaiger was once a smallish newspaper from Thailand. In 2017 it was bought by private equity and gutted. The digital assets were purchased by what appears to be a shell company. All actual news staff were fired. The only current writer appears to be Lilly Larkin, who writes like someone who would have failed a High School honors English class rather than a professional journalist. There also doesn't appear to have been any editorial oversight to the articles. All

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Khyber ( 864651 )

        I mean, it isn't too hard to find Altman's sister's OnlyFans. It took me all of 5 minutes, so I'd wager there's some truth to the story since it was mentioned there.

        • She never hid her OF account. It's linked on her ex-Twitter bio. Because that's how you run an OnlyFans.

          It's not a "story". It's a press release from a PR firm, like all the other posts on the site. It's only purpose is to fool gullible idiots.

  • What is MS Buying when Hiring Altman? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jvkjvk ( 102057 ) on Monday November 20, 2023 @12:55PM (#64018763)

    It seems to me that they are buying his name recognition, or something.

    Is he the only one that could lead MS's "vision" for AI? I doubt it very much, as he is more of a marketing, sales, and money guy. What do they need that for? It seems to me they have plenty of money, and can market the shit out of their products as they want. They can build up their own hype, they don't need a hype guy. But he comes with it built it, so, meh.

    • They're buying his inability to join another company and rally investors around the competition.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jvkjvk ( 102057 )

        Pretty true! Imagine if he instead decided to form his own company, and 700+ OpenAI engineers quit...That would not have been good for MS's investments in AI. So, just due to his "gravitas" on the scene he gets snapped up.

    • Whatever Altman did right or wrong, and whatever competence he has or lacks, he did successfully bring OpenAI to the forefront of everyone's imagination. He brought in billions in investor capital, and got literally everyone salivating about using his company's software. Those are not easy accomplishments.

      Microsoft has struggled to get people to use Bing, until they incorporated ChatGPT's LLM into their system. Now, they're the clear leader in consumer AI, at least for the moment.

      I'd say that adds up to a t

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by icejai ( 214906 )

        Sutskever was Hinton's right-hand man from his time at U of T all the way up to Google. I doubt he, or any organization he joined as Chief Scientist and/or co-founder, would have any trouble raising capital if there were no Sam.

        • "Chief Scientists" are not necessarily good fundraisers. *NOW* it may be true that Sutskever could do it, because of his role at OpenAI and his name recognition. Still, the skill of raising investor cash, and publicizing a technology, are very different from the skill of developing a technology.

    • Sometimes the play is to buy a rare and valuable resource to take it off the market so that someone else doesn't get it to use against you.

      I'm not saying that Sam Altman is a rare and valuable resource, but someone at Microsoft sure thinks he is, and it's their money.

  • Sam Altman and Jony Ive have collaborated on a new generation of smart phone. In the coming age of AI driven agents, Microsoft will exploit this opportunity to the hilt to be relevant in the smartphone market. I would not bet against them.

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