Ilya Sutskever, who co-founded artificial intelligence research lab OpenAI and served as its chief scientist, is leaving the company. He will be replaced by Jakub Pachocki, the company’s director of research.
After almost a decade, I have made the decision to leave OpenAI. The company’s trajectory has been nothing short of miraculous, and I’m confident that OpenAI will build AGI that is both safe and beneficial under the leadership of @sama, @gdb, @miramurati and now, under the…
— Ilya Sutskever (@ilyasut) May 14, 2024
Ilya Sutskever’s exit follows a period of internal turmoil at OpenAI. Last year, he played a role in Altman’s temporary ousting before reversing course and expressing regret. Sutskever has not revealed the details of his new project, but said it is “very personally meaningful.”
OpenAI’s chief executive officer Sam Altman expressed deep appreciation for Sutskever’s pivotal role in shaping the company’s trajectory, while adding that the ChatGPT-parent “would not be what it is without him.” Greg Brockman, President at the company, called Ilya Sutskever “an artist”, who helped him navigate the field in his initial days.
I have immense gratitude to Ilya for being my co-founder, my friend, and the officiant at my civil ceremony.
Together, we charted the path of what OpenAI would become today. When we started in late 2015, OpenAI was a non-profit with a mission to make AGI go well but without a… https://t.co/4HEm6EDtqb
— Greg Brockman (@gdb) May 14, 2024
Replacing Sutskever as the new chief scientist is Jakub Pachocki, who previously served as OpenAI’s director of research and played a pivotal role in developing transformative AI models like GPT-4 and OpenAI Five. “Jakub is going to be our new Chief Scientist. Jakub is also easily one of the greatest minds of our generation; I am thrilled he is taking the baton here. He has run many of our most important projects, and I am very confident he will lead us to make rapid and safe progress towards our mission of ensuring that AGI benefits everyone,” Altman said.
Meanwhile, Sutskever’s departure comes just a day after OpenAI announced its new GPT-4o model, capable of realistic voice interactions and working across text and images. This new model, dubbed “omni”, is build upon the capabilities of its predecessor GPT-4, offering similar intelligence but with a focus on multimodal understanding.
