Griffin on Tech: OpenAI’s safety conscious exiles, and the end of OMG Tech!
AI engineer Ilya Sutskever is the man largely responsible for the generative AI boom we are currently in and which this week propelled chip maker Nvidia to its position as the most valuable company in the world with a market cap of US$3.4 trillion.
Sutskever co-founed OpenAI with Sam Altman, built a crack team of AI experts there and led the push to develop large language models that now underpin ChatGPT. Then he had a falling out with Altman over the future of the company, alarmed at the rapid pace of product releases. He thought safety was taking a backseat to commerce.
Sutskever quit OpenAI in May and this week announced a new venture, Safe Superintelligence Inc. with fellow ex-OpenAI engineer Daniel Levy, and former Apple AI lead Daniel Gross.
“This company is special in that its first product will be the safe superintelligence, and it will not do anything else up until then,” Sutskever told Bloomberg this week.
“It will be fully insulated from the outside pressures of having to deal with a large and complicated product and having to be stuck in a competitive rat race.”
You have to give credit to Sutskever for calling time on his involvement at OpenAI, which undoubtedly has seen him forego probably billions of dollars of wealth by rejecting Altman’s ‘move fast and break things’ approach to advancing AI.
There are very few details about Safe Superintelligence Inc. but it appears it will be a for-profit venture that will have offices in Pao Alto and Tel Aviv.
“We plan to advance capabilities as fast as possible while making sure our safety always remains ahead,” the barebones Safe Superintelligence website tells us.
“This way, we can scale in peace.”
Sutskever isn’t divulging the company’s backer, which is disappointing, as transparency surely has to be a key pillar of developing AI safety. But it is a cut-throat sector, in a middle of an AI arms race, so the secrecy is understandable, for now.
But Safe Superintelligence sounds a heck of a lot like OpenAI, which was set up to advance humanity towards artificial general intelligence safely, as a for-profit entity embedded in a not for profit. It’s safety-conscious mission fell apart late last year when its board fired Sam Altman, but then saw itself dissolved when Altman returned to the company.
By the way, former OpenAI board member Helen Toner has done a must-listen TED interview about what went down at OpenAI, Altman’s conduct at the company, and her views on what needs to happen to pursue responsible AI.
Whether Safe Superintelligence Inc. lives up to the name depends on its definition of safe AGI, and whether these co-founders will be able to resist the urge to go for broke in the way Altman has, prioritising speed to market over safety.
Either way, Safe Superintelligence is tapping into a swell of interest in “responsible AI”, which has reached the “peak of inflated expectations” on Gartner’s AI Hype Cycle.
The end of OMG Tech!
It’s a tough time for the education sector, and for initiatives relying on philanthropy and government funding to advance STEAM initiatives in schools and communities. One such initiative, OMG Tech!, announced it was winding up this week, after ten years of offering kids the opportunity to learn robotics, coding, and science and innovation concepts.
OMG Tech! was founded by Pam Fergusson Charitable Trust, with Vend founder Vaughan Fergusson and Dr Michelle “Nanogirl” Dickinson the initial driving force behind it.
“We have grown our team of awesome menators and we opened a school camp to teach science and technology in the context of protecting our environment. We weathered COVID and leaned into digital equity and learning. We’ve pioneered new practices in the classroom,” Fergusson wrote in a blog post this week.
He explained that funding is “no longer available” and the limited funds in the STEAM space are going to other programmes “run by authentic voices in our communities”.
“Not that we are old and stale but there is new energy in other organisations taking up the mantle,” re wrote.
“A change in priorities for government also means we need to stop our digital education – something we obviously don’t agree with, but it is what it is. Schools, communities and our corporate partners are all going through a tough period too. Their priorities have all shifted as we all work through hard economic times.”
It’s sad to see OMG Tech winding up, we need more of these types of initiatives to inspire kids to think critically and learn the sorts of skills that will give them opportunities to pursue successful careers. Well done to Vaughan and his team for developing great content and resources, which will remain available via the OMG Tech! website.
Says Fergusson: “We hope others will adapt our workshops and online courses to suit the needs of their communities. Again, not an end, and perhaps many exciting new things will come from it.”
