The boss of OpenAI, Sam Altman, a very media figure and face of artificial intelligence, has been fired, the company’s board of directors said Friday afternoon.
Mira Murati, chief technology officer, has been named interim CEO, the company said.
“Mr. Altman’s departure follows an extensive review by the Board of Directors, which concluded that he was not always candid in his communications with the Board, hindering his ability to carry out his responsibilities, the company said. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue to lead OpenAI. »
The fall is brutal for Mr. Altman, 38, who over the past year has become one of the technology sector’s most eminent bosses and one of its most fascinating characters.
He transformed the small San Francisco company into a technology leader financed with billions by Microsoft and envied by Silicon Valley giants like Google and Meta, Facebook’s parent company.
He has also been the voice of the technology industry in its transition to AI, testifying before Congress and charming elected officials and regulators around the world.
The OpenAI board of directors did not specify the reasons for its decision.
On Thursday evening, Mr. Altman participated in an event in Oakland, California, where he spoke about the future of art and artists in the face of artificial intelligence, which can now generate images, videos, sounds and other art forms. Making no mention of his departure, he repeated several times that he and OpenAI would continue to work with artists in order to secure their future.
In late 2022, OpenAI sparked an AI rush across the tech industry by bringing ChatGPT online. This chatbot has amazed hundreds of millions of users with its ability to answer questions, write poems and discuss almost any topic.
After the launch of ChatGPT, the entire tech sector adopted “generative artificial intelligence”, a technology that can generate text, images and other media itself. The result of a decade of research at OpenAI and Google, among others, this technology is revolutionizing the virtual world, from email to search engines to digital tutors.
OpenAI is currently negotiating a financing round that would value it at more than $80 billion, nearly triple its valuation less than a year ago.