Just as the battle in the AI space heats up between Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)-backed OpenAI and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), a major leadership shakeup is taking place at the former. Ilya Sutskever, the Chief Scientist and co-founder of OpenAI, is leaving the AI startup.
The Departure
OpenAI announced that Jakub Pachocki, its Research Director, will replace Ilya Sutskever. Sutskever was instrumental in OpenAI’s growth, and also contributed to the brief ouster of Sam Altman from the ChatGPT maker last year.
While Altman’s departure at the time was less than amicable, in this instance, Altman is full of praise for Sutskever. In a blog post, Altman hailed Sutskever as “one of the greatest minds of our field and a dear friend.” Sutskever is now embarking on a new venture.
Comes Amid Rising AI Competition
The major leadership change at the company comes just as both Google and OpenAI announced a slew of new products in recent days. This week, Google demonstrated the new capabilities of its Gemini 1.5 model at its I/O 2024 Conference in Mountain View, highlighting its ability to handle complex queries. Earlier, OpenAI introduced GPT-4o, its newest AI model, which can remember past interactions, express and perceive a range of emotions, and support 50 different languages. Meanwhile, Jakub Pachocki, the new Chief Scientist at OpenAI, has played a key role in the development of GPT-4 and OpenAI Five.
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