OpenAI CEO: Musk's withdrawal had a great impact on the company and had to be rescheduled
August 22-Sam Altman, CEO of artificial intelligence research firm OpenAI, recently talked about the impact of Elon Musk's announcement of his withdrawal in 2018 in an interview. Altman said the move shocked the company and forced him to readjust his life and schedule.
"it was a very difficult situation," Altman said. I had to readjust my life and schedule to make sure we had enough money. "
In 2015, Musk, Altman, Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, Peter Thiel, co-founder of payments company PayPal, and a number of other technology industry leaders founded OpenAI. This is a non-profit organization that aims to "promote the development of digital intelligence in a way that is most likely to benefit mankind".
It is estimated that Mr Musk personally invested between $50 million and $100m into OpenAI. But in 2018, Musk left the company's board. At that time, the reason he put forward was a conflict of interest with Tesla. But earlier this year, Mr Musk reportedly left the company after his offer to take the helm of OpenAI was rejected.
"basically, he was saying, 'you're all idiots,' and then left," Hoffman confirmed. "
Some sources said that after Musk withdrew, he also gave up his commitment to continue to provide funds for OpenAI, which put Altman in a difficult position.
Since the launch of the generative artificial intelligence chat robot ChatGPT in November last year, OpenAI has become a household name.
After the launch of the chat robot, Microsoft invested $10 billion in OpenAI. In April, OpenAI raised another $495 million from venture capitalists such as Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive and K2 Global.
Although Musk still thinks the company's existence is laudable, he attacked OpenAI as a "company that is effectively controlled by Microsoft and seeks to maximize profits."
Altman called Musk a "jerk" and claimed that OpenAI put profits above safety "completely wrong".
Musk also criticized ChatGPT for providing a "worrying" answer, calling artificial intelligence "one of the biggest risks to the future of human civilization".
Nevertheless, Musk announced the establishment of his artificial intelligence company, xAI, in July, calling its lofty goal "to understand the true nature of the universe."
OpenAI and Mr Musk didn't respond to requests for comment.
