Over 500 OpenAI employees have threatened to leave the company after the dismissal of co-founder Sam Altman and expressed interest in joining Microsoft if the board of directors does not resign. The company’s senior officials, including chief scientist Ilya Sutskever and top executive Mira Murati, have criticized the board’s decision to remove Altman from his position.
Microsoft has assured employees that there are positions for all OpenAI staff members in their new subsidiary if they decide to join. Despite pressure from Microsoft and other investors, OpenAI has appointed a new CEO, Emmett Shear, who maintains that Altman was removed due to behavior and lack of transparency that undermined the board’s ability to effectively oversee the company.
However, Shear denied reports that Altman had been fired over security concerns related to the use of AI technology. Microsoft has invested over $10 billion in OpenAI and has implemented its technology in its own products. The company remains committed to its partnership with OpenAI and is confident in its product roadmap.
OpenAI competes with other companies like Google and Meta in the development of AI-based applications. Generative AI platforms like ChatGPT are powered by large amounts of data, allowing them to answer questions in human-like language and generate or manipulate images or create sounds and expressions.