Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder and the chief scientist of OpenAI, has officially departed from the organization. The news was shared by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in a post on X on Tuesday evening.
“This is truly sad for me; Ilya is undoubtedly one of the brightest minds of our time, a beacon in our field, and a cherished friend,” Altman expressed. “OpenAI owes much of its current success to him. While he is embarking on a personally significant endeavor, I remain deeply grateful for his contributions here and am committed to continuing the mission we started together.”
— Ilya Sutskever (@ilyasut) May 14, 2024
Stepping into Sutskever's role is Jakub Pachocki, who has served as OpenAI’s director of research. Joining the company in 2017, Pachocki initially led the research on OpenAI’s Dota team, which developed an AI capable of defeating human competitors in Valve’s Dota 2 game. He later ascended to the role of research lead for OpenAI’s reasoning and deep learning organizations before becoming principal of research.
It's currently unclear if Pachocki will assume leadership of OpenAI’s Superalignment team, which was formerly overseen by Sutskever and Jan Leike. Leike has also left OpenAI, as reported by The New York Times.
Established in July, the Superalignment team focuses on creating methods to guide, regulate, and govern "superintelligent" AI systems—hypothetical systems with intelligence far surpassing that of humans. The Times has indicated that John Schulman, another co-founder of OpenAI, will transition into a supervisory role for this team.
According to insiders, the Superalignment team will be integrated “more deeply” across OpenAI’s research initiatives to better meet its goals, hinting that the current structure of the team might evolve in the future.
Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president, noted on X that Sutskever “was instrumental in establishing the foundations of what OpenAI is today.”
“I am profoundly grateful to Ilya for being my co-founder, my friend, and officiating my civil ceremony. Together, we forged the path for what OpenAI has become since we started in late 2015 as a nonprofit aimed at responsibly developing AGI,” he shared.
Sutskever’s departure coincides with the recent launch of OpenAI’s latest flagship generative AI model, GPT-4o, and significant upgrades to the widely popular AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT, marking a notable chapter in the company’s journey.
In November, just before Thanksgiving, Sutskever and OpenAI CTO Mira Murati expressed concerns regarding Altman's leadership to members of OpenAI's previous board of directors. Their worries centered on divergent views about the company's direction; Sutskever reportedly felt frustrated with Altman's aggressive push to launch AI products at the potential expense of safety considerations.
The old board, including Sutskever, controversially attempted to terminate Altman without prior notice to most employees. Their statement cited Altman's inconsistency in communication with the board.
This decision sparked outrage among Microsoft and other investors, jeopardizing the company's stock sale and leading the majority of OpenAI employees—including Sutskever—to threaten their resignations unless Altman was promptly reinstated.
Altman was eventually reinstated, leading to the resignation of many old board members. According to The Times, Sutskever never returned to work after this upheaval, and since November, Pachocki has effectively been operating as chief scientist.
Sutskever, who obtained his PhD in computer science from the University of Toronto under AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton, joined OpenAI in 2015 after his tenure at Google Brain, one of Google’s premier AI research divisions. He is renowned in the AI field, having contributed to landmark projects such as ImageNet and DeepMind’s AlphaGo.
What lies ahead for him remains uncertain. However, Sutskever indicated on X that he is departing OpenAI with confidence in the company’s ability to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI)—AI that can perform any human task—that is “both safe and beneficial.”
“After nearly a decade, I have decided to leave OpenAI. The company’s growth has been nothing short of extraordinary, and I trust that OpenAI will create AGI under the leadership of @sama, @gdb, @miramurati, and now, under the…” he stated. “I am looking forward to what comes next—an endeavor that holds personal significance for me, about which I will share more details in due course. It has been a real honor to work at OpenAI, and I will miss everyone greatly.”
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