Ilya Sutskever (Twitter)
Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist at Sam Altman’s OpenAI who grew up in Israel and co-founded the company, just announced his departure from the company. The move comes just six months after the firm’s board tried and failed to oust Sam Altman from the company he founded. Altman returned to run the company just two days after his “firing.”
While he did not specify a reason for his departure, last year’s failed coup against Sam Altman is likely the cause. Ilya Sutskever was one of the people who claimed that Altman was not, in their opinion, concerned enough about the possible ramifications of the proliferation of artificial intelligence technologies.
Ilya Sutskever issued a statement about his departure, making no hint of any rifts at the top and only offering praise for OpenAI’s leadership.
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“After almost a decade, I have made the decision to leave OpenAI,” he said. “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 Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Mira Murati and now, under the excellent research leadership of Jakub Pachocki.”
“It was an honor and a privilege to have worked together, and I will miss everyone dearly,” added Ilya Sutskever. “So long, and thanks for everything. I am excited for what comes next — a project that is very personally meaningful to me about which I will share details in due time.
Sam Altman also issued a positive statement of his own, flattering Ilya Sutskever.
“Ilya and OpenAI are going to part ways,” he said. “This is very sad to me; Ilya is easily one of the greatest minds of our generation, a guiding light of our field, and a dear friend. His brilliance and vision are well known; his warmth and compassion are less well known but no less important.”
“OpenAI would not be what it is without him,” added Altman. “Although he has something personally meaningful he is going to go work on, I am forever grateful for what he did here and committed to finishing the mission we started together. I am happy that for so long I got to be close to such genuinely remarkable genius, and someone so focused on getting to the best future for humanity.”
Jakub Pachocki will take over as OpenAI’s new Chief Scientist. Altman called him, “easily one of the greatest minds of our generation,” and said he is “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.”
There is no word yet on what Ilya Sutskever will do next.
Ilya Sutskever is a prominent computer scientist who has made significant contributions to the field of machine learning, particularly in deep learning. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Toronto under the supervision of Geoffrey Hinton
