Sam Altman’s Ousting Could be Due to Q*, a Super AI
You know those dystopian sci-fi films where AI threatens to take over the world and strip it of its humanity?
It may seem like pure fiction now, but think again.
On 17 November 2023, CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman was ousted from his own company. You can watch this video for more information:
OpenAI revealed in a blog that the reason for Atlman’s removal was due to his inability to be “consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.”
However, further investigations revealed a darker truth behind this upstaging of leadership.
Before his exile, several staff researchers of OpenAI had sent a letter to its board of directors proclaiming discovery of a powerful artificial intelligence that can threaten humanity. The following weekend, Altman was removed from his position.
What is OpenAI?
But before we delve in further, we need to understand what OpenAI is.
Even if their name does not sound too familiar, you probably have heard of – or maybe even spent some time playing around with – their generative AI chatbot, ChatGPT.
The chatbot allows users to enter prompts and, using natural language processing and reinforcement learning through human feedback, creates humanlike conversational dialogue in return.
(Don’t lie, ChatGPT came in clutch when it came to school or work at least once, right?)
According to their website, OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company whose mission is to create AI that benefits all of humanity.
While AI systems are generally smarter than humans, it is OpenAI’s goal to ensure these systems enhance and elevate the human experience by “increasing abundance, turbocharging the global economy, and aiding in the discovery of new scientific knowledge.”
What’s So “Threatening” About this New AI, Q*?
The new project, Q* (pronounced as Q-star), was spearheaded by Altman and hailed as a breakthrough for the company.
Lest you’re unaware, Q is also a lifeform in the Star Trek universe. It’s often seen as “god-like” due to its ability to alter space and time.
According to an anonymous source, given its vast computing resources, Q* has the ability to solve certain mathematical problems, albeit only at grade-school level.
Okay, so? Most humans are capable of primary school mathematics as well. What’s so impressive about that?
While previous generative AI is excellent at writing and language via the use of statistically predicted text, it faces difficulty conquering math, where there is only one correct answer.
As a result, Q* shows greater reasoning capabilities akin to human intelligence.
In the letter addressed to OpenAI’s board of directors, researchers had flagged Q*’s powerful abilities as potential danger, though the specific concerns were not explicitly revealed.
(If Avengers: Age of Ultron is anything to go by, it’s a hard pass for me)
The board allegedly fired Altman after the reveal of this letter.
However, less than 5 days after he was stripped of his title and position, it was announced that Sam Altman was reinstated as CEO.
On 22 November 2023, OpenAI revealed through X, formerly Twitter, that they have “reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO”.
According to Bloomberg, this is a victory for Microsoft Corp., which worked with fellow investors to reverse Altman’s firing, and publicly showed support towards him during his rough patch.
Moreover, prior to Altman’s reinstatement, more than 700 employees, including interim CEO Mira Murati, threatened to quit their jobs in order to voice their protest and show solidarity with their former CEO.
With the loyalty of his employees and investors, Altman has proven himself to be a competent, charismatic leader and face of generative artificial intelligence.
Quoting Altman’s blog post from three years ago, “As long as you are right, being misunderstood by most people is a strength not a weakness. You and a small group of rebels get the space to solve an important problem that might otherwise not get solved.”
Only time will tell how the AI industry will evolve, but in the right hands, it is sure to be a marvelment that will bring humanity to greater heights.
Or maybe we’d all be slaves to robots in the future.