The events of the past few days have shaken the world of artificial intelligence and brought the topic of AI to the headlines of all the world's media. In turn, it all started with one unfortunate decision.
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Earthquake
Last Friday we witnessed a real earthquake at Open AI, the artificial intelligence development and research giant. This is because Sam Altman was dismissed from his position as CEO.
This one decision triggered a real avalanche of events. For, as it turned out, in a gesture of solidarity with their boss, his closest colleagues began to resign from their positions.
As if that wasn't enough, Altman was followed by the company's rank and file employees. "The New York Times" reported that of the nearly 770 professionals involved in artificial intelligence, more than 500 wanted to throw their notice on the table. This, of course, threatened to seriously destabilize the company. One of the most important companies in the world at the moment.
In the fumes of conspiracy theories
Very interesting information about the behind-the-scenes of these events was reported by Reuters, which cited two informants from inside the company. These very reports show that several scientific employees of the company just before the decision to fire Altman wrote a certain letter to the board of directors. It was to contain a warning regarding the fact that a breakthrough discovery had been made at the company that could endanger humanity.
What exactly was it about? It is not known. According to unofficial information, the reference was to the "Q*" project, which concerns work on artificial general intelligence. Over autonomous systems that can significantly outperform humans in almost all tasks and which, if not careful, could get out of control. This, in turn, could lead to the realization of scenarios we are very familiar with from science fiction films, namely the famous revolt of the machines.
To what extent is all this information true? We don't know, but the fact is that shortly after writing the aforementioned letter, Altman said goodbye to his position.
Confusion and comeback
After all, it's no secret that Sam Altman and his closest colleagues were quite adamant about working even harder and faster on AI development. Did this ultimately decide the fate of the founder and head of Open AI?
Unlikely, although as time has shown, his "exile" did not last very long. After all, the company behind GPT Chat very quickly decided to reinstate Altman.
The pressure coming from Microsoft, i.e. from Open AI's major shareholder, was to have a considerable impact.
Will the first AI war prove to be a coup and one of the milestones of future technology? Well, Sam Altman does not intend to slow down and wants the work on AI to go to the next level. And if the warnings about the breakthrough that has taken place turn out to be true and AGI is a fact and not a melody of the future, we may be in for a truly exciting future.
