Sam Altman was fired as OpenAI CEO on November 19, 2023, triggering resignations from co-founder Greg Brockman and senior researchers over tension between safety-focused and product-driven approaches. Microsoft's $10 billion investment and OpenAI's GPT-4 Turbo release hung in the balance. DeepMind released an AI music generator that converts humming into styled audio with digital watermarks.
Questions this video answers
November 19, 2023.
10 billion dollars (mentioned as Microsoft funding for OpenAI).
Greg Brockman (co-founder and president).
Chapters
My goodness, what is happening? Sam Altman has resigned as the CEO of OpenAI. And we'll talk about this new AI tool too, which will be the future of music creation according to DeepMind. But firing Sam Altman, really? Why? Everything seemed so good. This isn't news that you expect to hear after the first OpenAI developer conference where they announced GPT4 Turbo and perhaps the first AI app store in a historic moment and more. And in the meantime, work on GPT5 is also underway. They also created GPT Bot, a web crawler, as a preparation for GPT5. OpenAI also needs to raise more money than the 10 billion they have from Microsoft, and work is underway on that too. And at that moment, the news just drops out of the sky. So Sam Altman has been asked by the board to step down. Wow. And what happened then was absolute pandemonium. Dear fellow scholars, this is two minute papers with Dr. Zsolnai. So what happened then? Well, shortly after Greg Brockman, co founder and president of OpenAI also resigned. And that's not all. Then shortly after three high level researchers also resigned. Clearly there are big disagreements within the company as to how they should proceed. What I hear is that one side would like to take a slower, more aligned approach while the other is interested in moving more quickly. It is very difficult to say which is the right approach, especially in the presence of this pace of progress that you see here on 2 Minute Papers. Sometimes you see a paper that is kinda okay, but a bit like a toy, like the Dall E2 text to image AI and then one or two more works down the line. Dall E3, an absolute powerhouse, drops. And that's not all. OpenAI is a non profit entity as it has been created by its founders, but it is a for profit entity too. Now I hear you asking doctor, what is going on here? How does this happen? You see, Both are true. OpenAI is a nonprofit entity that owns the for profit entity and the board of directors controls the top level. Clearly there are differences in opinion whether that is a good thing or not. Is OpenAI going to become a big trillion dollar company or is it going to be a small and scrappy startup with these miracle AI systems? Differences in opinion in there too, I am sure. Now in the meantime, Microsoft, major investor in OpenAI, they are likely as surprised by this as we are, but they have billions of dollars invested there and they are not happy, especially because of what happened next. Next Altman said that he is ready for the next venture, presumably with his co founder Greg Bruckman and a bunch of researchers by his side. I expected that an announcement will be made about the next chapter for them. And then another bombshell news appears. Presumably due to the wishes of investors and Microsoft, Altman is in talks again to be reinstated as CEO just about a day later. So what could happen here? Well, option one if that happens, Altman would be back and would likely be way more powerful than before. Also, I can't imagine Microsoft not asking for at least a board seat. Or perhaps an entirely new board may be created. Or option 2 otherwise Sam might create a competitor to OpenAI and I am sure there will be investors who are eager to be a part of it. But wait, it is still not done. The talks have already started and Altman was ambivalent about coming back. Not so sure a key deadline was missed, which may trigger the mass resignation of even more scientists at OpenAI. So what is going to happen now? Who really knows? The story is still ongoing. So far this is absolute pandemonium. There are likely intense and I mean intense talks in the situation room right now. And in the meantime, the DeepMind showcased an amazing new music creation AI where you can do as little as just hum a song and it will come to life as a saxophone solo or any kind of music you wish. It even creates music in the style of popular artists. Wait for it, fellow scholars. Only a few select artists who have agreed to this program. These will be typically 30 second song snippets to be used in YouTube shorts, so you don't have to listen to the same few songs that dominate the market at the time. Instead, new stuff all the time. Really cool Now. Interestingly, these songs will also be digitally watermarked. It is completely inaudible. You will not hear anything, but a computer will be able to detect it as a piece of AI generated content. Interestingly, this watermark will also survive if someone converts or or recompresses the file into a different format. I am happy to hear that we are starting to figure out how to mark AI created content on the Internet for music and images. There is already great progress on this. Loving it. Once again the papers that you see here in these videos are coming to life. What a time to be alive. Note that the sources for hopefully everything that I said here are available in the video Description Weights and biases, Experiment tracking, Model evaluation and production monitoring for your deep Learning products and LLM apps. It is the best. Everyone is using it. Try it out now at WNB Me Papers or click the link in the description below.
