OpenAI cofounder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever is stepping away from the company after almost a decade, he said Tuesday in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Sutskever said he is "confident" that the company will continue to build technology that is "both safe and beneficial."
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
Sutskever added he was "excited" about his next steps, which he said he would share more details about "in due time."
Neither OpenAI nor Sutskever immediately responded to requests for comment from BI.
In his own post on X, Altman said, "Ilya and OpenAI are going to part ways. 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."
Sutskever was behind some of OpenAI's biggest breakthroughs in generative AI, but his position at the company has been in doubt for the last six months after reports indicated he played a key role in the shocking and ultimately failed board ouster of OpenAI CEO and cofounder Sam Altman in November.
Days after Altman was pushed out by the board, Sutskever said he regretted his role in the move, and Altman returned to OpenAI as CEO just five days after he was ousted.
Despite Sutskever's expression of remorse, his role at the company remained strained.
Two people familiar with the situation told Business Insider in December that Sutskever had essentially been shut out of OpenAI after the attempt to remove Altman as CEO.
Sutskever has also raised concerns about the potential harm caused by AI models like ChatGPT in the past.
Last year, Sutskever launched a new team at OpenAI called Superalignment that is meant to ensure AI models work for the good of humanity and do not cause harm.
Sutskever's announcement comes a day after OpenAI announced its latest ChatGPT update, GPT-4o, which has improved voice and vision capabilities.
