Ilya Sutskever, one of the co-founders of OpenAI and its longtime chief scientist, has left the company.
On Tuesday evening, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman made the announcement on X (formerly Twitter). Altman expressed his sadness, describing Sutskever as “one of the greatest minds of our generation” and crediting him for his significant contributions to OpenAI. Despite his departure, Sutskever will be working on a personally meaningful project, according to Altman.
Altman’s Tribute
In his post, Altman praised Sutskever, saying, “Ilya is easily one of the greatest minds of our generation, a guiding light of our field, and a dear friend. OpenAI would not be what it is without him. Although he has something personally meaningful he is going to work on, I am forever grateful for what he did here and committed to finishing the mission we started together.”
— Ilya Sutskever (@ilyasut) May 14, 2024
New Leadership
Replacing Sutskever as the chief scientist is Jakub Pachocki, OpenAI’s director of research. Pachocki joined OpenAI in 2017, initially working on the team that developed an AI system capable of defeating human players in the game Dota 2. Over the years, he has risen through the ranks, most recently serving as the principal of research.
The Superalignment Team
It remains unclear if Pachocki will also take over as the head of OpenAI’s Superalignment team, a role previously shared by Sutskever and Jan Leike. Leike has also resigned from OpenAI, according to the New York Times.
The Superalignment team, established in July, focuses on developing methods to manage and govern superintelligent AI systems, which are theoretical systems with intelligence surpassing human levels. John Schulman, another co-founder of OpenAI, will reportedly oversee this team.
Tributes and Future Outlook
Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president, also took to X to commend Sutskever’s contributions, stating, “Ilya played a key role in helping build the foundations of what OpenAI has become today.” Sutskever’s departure comes shortly after the unveiling of OpenAI’s latest generative AI model, GPT-4o, and significant upgrades to ChatGPT, the company’s popular AI-powered chatbot.
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
Background of the Departure
Sutskever’s exit caps off a turbulent period that began last November. Before Thanksgiving, Sutskever and OpenAI CTO Mira Murati approached members of OpenAI’s previous board of directors to express concerns about Altman’s leadership, particularly his rapid push to launch AI-powered products over safety considerations.
This disagreement led the board to abruptly fire Altman without informing most of OpenAI’s staff, causing widespread outrage among employees and investors, including Microsoft. In a remarkable reversal, the board reinstated Altman, and much of the old board resigned. Sutskever, who had pledged to quit unless Altman was reinstated, never returned to work.
Sutskever’s Legacy and Future
Ilya Sutskever is a highly accomplished figure in AI. He earned his doctorate in computer science at the University of Toronto under AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton and later worked at Google Brain before co-founding OpenAI in 2015.
His notable contributions include work on the ImageNet computer vision system and DeepMind’s AlphaGo. As for his future plans, Sutskever has not disclosed details but hinted at working on a project that holds personal significance.
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
In a statement on X, Sutskever said, “I am excited for what comes next—aa project that is very personally meaningful to me about which I will share details in due time. It was an honor and a privilege to have worked together [at OpenAI], and I will miss everyone dearly.”
