OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever is officially leaving

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses the departure of Ilya Sutskever, the co-founder and chief scientist of OpenAI, from the company. It also covers the changes in leadership at OpenAI, with Jakub Pachocki becoming the new Chief Scientist and the resignation of Jan Leike, who was running the Superalignment team.

🙋 Q&A

[01] Ilya Sutskever's Departure from OpenAI

1. What is the reason for Ilya Sutskever's departure from OpenAI?

• Ilya Sutskever is leaving OpenAI to work on a "project that is very personally meaningful" to him, according to his statement.
• The article mentions that there was ambiguity around Sutskever's employment following the temporary ouster of Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, last November, which sparked speculation about whether Sutskever knew something the public didn't.

2. How did Sam Altman and OpenAI react to Sutskever's departure?

• Sam Altman expressed sadness over Sutskever's departure, calling him "one of the greatest minds of our generation" and stating that OpenAI would not be what it is without him.
• Altman also announced that Jakub Pachocki, the company's director of research, will be the new Chief Scientist, describing him as "also easily one of the greatest minds of our generation."

[02] Changes in OpenAI's Leadership

1. Who is Jakub Pachocki, and what is his role at OpenAI?

• Jakub Pachocki is the new Chief Scientist at OpenAI, taking over the role from Ilya Sutskever.
• Pachocki has been "spearheading the development of GPT-4 and OpenAI Five, and fundamental research in large-scale RL and deep learning optimization."

2. What other changes in leadership have occurred at OpenAI?

• Jan Leike, who was running the Superalignment team that Sutskever had set up, has also resigned from OpenAI.
• John Schulman, another OpenAI co-founder, has taken over Leike's responsibilities.