OpenAI-s-leadership-conflict-and Stanford's 2023 AI Index Report

The Genesis of Conflict at OpenAI

Hi, it's Omar. Today's newsletter is 831 words, a 3-minute read.

I am excited to write this week’s newsletter, which reminds everyone of the time when Steve Jobs was fired in 1985. Tech Twitter went wild and Sam Altman got 100% support from the tech world.

Enjoy this week’s newsletter:

1. Sam Altman is FIRED; here’s my detailed analysis

The Genesis of the Conflict OpenAI's journey from a non-profit organization to a leading AI powerhouse is marked by ambition and controversy. The crux of the recent leadership shakeup lies in a fundamental disagreement over the direction of AI development. This involves a tussle between commercialization and ethical responsibility, with Sam Altman and Greg Brockman advocating for rapid deployment of AI technologies, while others, like Ilya Sutskever, express concerns about the potential risks associated with such a fast-paced approach.

The Boardroom Split and Its Consequences The dismissal of CEO Sam Altman, a move that has stunned the tech community, was reportedly due to a lack of transparency with the board. This decision signifies more than just a leadership change; it highlights the delicate balance and tension between innovation, ethical AI development, and corporate governance. The repercussions of this event extend beyond OpenAI, influencing the broader AI ecosystem, including investors, developers, and the global tech community.

Looking Beyond the Drama Post-Altman's departure, speculation abounds about his future endeavours and the potential for a new AI venture that could draw key talents from OpenAI. Meanwhile, OpenAI grapples with leadership restructuring and strategic redirection, amidst a backdrop of increasing competition and public scrutiny in the AI sector.

2. Stanford's 2023 AI Index Report: Points you should have a closer look

Industry races ahead of academia: Until 2014, most significant machine learning models were released by academia. Since then, the industry has taken over. In 2022, there were 32 significant industry-produced machine learning models compared to just three produced by academia. Building state-of-the-art AI systems increasingly requires large amounts of data, computing, and money, resources that industry actors inherently possess in greater amounts compared to nonprofits and academia.

Performance saturation on traditional benchmarks: AI continued to post state-of-the-art results, but year-over-year improvement on many benchmarks continues to be marginal. Moreover, the speed at which benchmark saturation is being reached is increasing. However, new, more comprehensive benchmarking suites such as BIG-bench and HELM are being released.

AI is both helping and harming the environment: New research suggests that AI systems can have serious environmental impacts. According to Luccioni et al., 2022, BLOOM’s training run emitted 25 times more carbon than a single air traveller on a one-way trip from New York to San Francisco. Still, new reinforcement learning models like BCOOLER show that AI systems can be used to optimize energy usage.

The number of incidents concerning the misuse of AI is rapidly rising: According to the AIAAIC database, which tracks incidents related to the ethical misuse of AI, the number of AI incidents and controversies has increased 26 times since 2012. Some notable incidents in 2022 included a deepfake video of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy surrendering and U.S. prisons using call-monitoring technology on their inmates. This growth is evidence of both greater use of AI technologies and awareness of misuse possibilities.

For the full report click this link!

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8 other developments from the past week...

  1. AI is stealing your content. Steal it back.

  2. Google Pixel 8 Pro review: Scary good AI.

  3. Investor frenzy will overvalue AI tech start-ups - Vinod Khosla.

  4. Google Brain founder says big tech is lying about AI extinction danger.

  5. Who’s going to the UK’s AI Safety Summit? Cambridge, MIT, Russia and Apple are not going. Official list here.

  6. Anthropic CEO’s remarks from the AI Safety Summit.

  7. Elon Musk and UK’s prime minister on AI.

  8. UK announces investment boost making British AI supercomputing 30 times more powerful.

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Best,

Omar Ajruli,
Chief Editor