OpenAI's chief scientist Ilya Sutskever has been missing in action ever since his ill-fated "palace coup" in November. Now, the startup's CEO Sam Altman has answered the question that has been on everyone's mind since then.
What Happened: Altman addressed the question about Sutskever's whereabouts on the Lex Fridman Podcast.
Fridman jokingly asked Altman if Sutskever was "being held hostage in a secret nuclear facility."
Not only did Altman deny it, but he laughed about it with Fridman, who pointed out that it has become a meme of sorts on social media.
While Altman was briefly ousted, he's now back at the top of the company with a revamped board of directors. Helen Toner, another board member, was part of Sutskever's bid to remove Altman. While Toner is out of the company, Sutskever is still a part of it.
But Altman seems to have no ill will for Sutskever.
"I love Ilya. I have tremendous respect for Ilya. I really hope we work together for certainly the rest of my career."
There have been murmurs about Sutskever having seen AGI and that he was so spooked by it that he tried to get Altman removed from OpenAI's leadership.
Altman has in the past talked about his – and OpenAI's – focus on achieving AGI, or artificial general intelligence. But has the Microsoft Corp.-backed MSFT startup achieved AGI and did Sutskever see it?
Altman denies it point blank.
"Ilya has not seen AGI. None of us have seen AGI. We've not built AGI."
He says he has been working closely with Sutskever over what AGI would mean for humanity and how they can set up the required guardrails.
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"Ilya is one of the people that I've spent the most time over the last couple of years talking about what this is going to mean, what we need to do to ensure we get it right, to ensure that we succeed at the mission."
Altman also seems to think highly of Sutskever despite the trust deficit between the two. He said he was at a dinner party with him recently, and said Sutskever was in a "silly mood."
"Ilya is a credit to humanity in terms of how much he thinks and worries about making sure we get this right."
Why It Matters: Both Altman and Sutskever are co-founders of OpenAI, having been at the company since its very beginning.
However, he is said to have joined forces with OpenAI CTO Mira Murati and Toner to oust Altman. Murati was made the company's interim CEO during the brief ouster of Altman.
Ironically, both Sutskever and Murati backed calls to bring back Altman.
For now, Altman does not know what Sutskever's next step is, and he wants his colleague to be the one who answers this instead.
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Photos courtesy: Flickr and Stanford University
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