Microsoft wins observer seat at OpenAI

Microsoft, a behemoth in the technology industry, has granted ChatGPT inventor OpenAI billions of dollars in funding in addition to a board seat.

Sam Altman, the chief executive officer, listed a list of goals in the message he sent to the OpenAI workforce on Wednesday. The memo was then uploaded to the business blog and contained the nomination.

The installation of the boardroom follows the turmoil that OpenAI experienced on November 17 when Altman was sacked by the company’s board, only for him to be reinstated a few days later due to resistance from employees and investors.

“Thank you for everything you have done since the very beginning and for how you handled things from the moment this started and over the last week,” Altman told employees in the memo.

At the height of the drama, Microsoft offered to hire Altman and OpenAI’s 750-strong staff to join the Redmond, Washington-based company to continue their work there on artificial intelligence.

Instead, the board that dismissed Altman was overhauled, now including the addition of Microsoft as a non-voting measure.

Microsoft will join former United States Treasury Secretary and political power broker Larry Summers, who was added last week, as well as Silicon Valley veteran Bret Taylor.

OpenAI’s chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, sat on the board that voted to remove Altman and has not been renewed.

Altman lauded Sutskever as an AI “guiding light” and said the company was in discussions to find him a role.

AFP