The Silicon Valley CEO of the artificial intelligence-powered chatbots ChatGPT and GPT-4, Sam Altman, has been fired by the company’s board of directors, which stated that it has lost faith in him.
The board claimed in announcing Altman’s dismissal, which has sent shockwaves across the fledgling AI business, that an internal inquiry discovered that Altman was not always truthful.
The statement read; “Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.”
Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, has been named temporary CEO until a permanent replacement is found.
When ChatGPT debuted late last year, Altman became an instant star and the face of a new generation of AI tools that can generate images and phrases in response to simple human cues. Microsoft has now deployed the technique, known as generative AI, on its search engine and other tools. Google has a competitor named “Bard,” and more generative AI tools have recently been developed.
ChatGPT quickly became a household brand, nearly associated with artificial intelligence. CEOs used it to write emails, people constructed websites without prior coding knowledge, and it passed law and business school examinations.
Sam Altman has long been a supporter of AI, but he is also one of its harshest critics. Altman highlighted the current technological surge as a watershed moment in his statement to Congress earlier this year.