The artificial intelligence race has a new competitor taking the start. This is Safe Superintelligence Inc, a company created by Ilya Sutskever, who was the chief scientist at OpenAI, the firm led by Sam Altman of which he was a co-founder. The new company will be domiciled in the United States, but will have its offices located between Palo Alto (California) and Tel Aviv (Israel). Sutskever has launched Safe Superintelligence just over a month after announcing his departure from OpenAI, the company that wowed the world with its ChatGPT.
“Superintelligence is at our fingertips. Building secure superintelligence (SSI) is the most important technical problem of our time. We have launched the world’s first SSI laboratory, with one goal and one product: secure superintelligence. It’s called Safe Superintelligence Inc,” Sutskever, 38, announced. through the social network X. Superintelligence, also called artificial general intelligence by others, is that which surpasses humans.
The position of the machine learning expert – with dual Israeli-Canadian nationality, but born in Russia – within OpenAI was somewhat compromised in the unsuccessful attempt to fire Sam Altman. Sutskever joined OpenAI’s independent directors in firing the company’s top executive, in whom they had lost confidence. Then, after the revolt of the firm’s workers, he showed his regret: “I deeply regret my participation in the council’s actions. It was never my intention to harm OpenAI. “I love everything we have built together and I will do everything I can to bring the company back together,” he tweeted.
At the time, it was speculated that the reasons for the discontent of the chief scientist, a key player in the development of OpenAI, were because the company was moving too quickly without appropriate safeguards and giving in to commercial temptations with its products and services. . In the midst of a crisis at the top of OpenAI, it was published that several OpenAI staff researchers sent a letter to the board shortly before the dismissal of Sam Altman in which they warned of a powerful discovery of artificial intelligence led by Sutskever himself which, according to them, could threaten humanity.
In May, when he announced his resignation as chief scientist of OpenAI, he anticipated that he was “excited” about a new project of which he then preferred not to give more details. Now, he signs his message alongside another former OpenAI employee, Daniel Levy, and 32-year-old Jerusalem-born businessman and entrepreneur Daniel Gross, co-founder of the search engine Cue, which he sold to Apple in 2013. Gross later worked on the projects of artificial intelligence in that technological giant and was a partner of Y-Combinator, as well as an investor in different technology firms such as Instacart, Figma, GitHub, Airtable, Rippling and Coinbase.
“Secure superintelligence is our mission, our name and our entire product roadmap, because it is our only goal. Our team, our investors and our business model are aligned to achieve SSI,” the three say in their message.
Safety, ahead
They also indicate that they address security and capabilities together, as technical problems that must be solved through revolutionary scientific and engineering advances. “We plan to advance capabilities as quickly as possible, ensuring that our security always comes first. In this way, we can grow with peace of mind.”
The new company seems to mark distances with other firms, including OpenAI, which in parallel with their research seek to launch products and services that generate enough income to continue investing in researchers and computing capacity.
Without giving details of that approach or the investors they have, Sutskever and his partners say: “Our singular focus means that we are not distracted by management overheads or product cycles, and our business model means that the Security and progress are insulated from short-term commercial pressures.
The company explains its dual headquarters in Palo Alto (California) and Tel Aviv, in that they have “deep roots and the ability to recruit the best technical talent” there.
You can follow EL PAÍS Technology in Facebook and x or sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
#OpenAI #CoFounder #Ilya #Sutskever #Creates #Firm