Slijepčević: Regardless of OpenAI, the market competition in developing AI models like ChatGPT is unstoppable anyway

Sam Altman, co-founder of OpenAI, the creator of the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, returned yesterday to the position of CEO of the company. After he was dismissed by the OpenAI board last Friday, a new management team was formed, which now includes former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, former Salesforce CEO Bret Taylor, and Adam D’Angelo, co-founder and CEO of Quora.

The conflict between the two ‘factions’ – the former management and Altman – marked a turbulent weekend in Silicon Valley. As Siniša Slijepčević, co-founder and director of the Croatian AI scaleup Cantab PI and a regular professor at the University of Zagreb’s PMF, comments for Lider, the former management represented the original OpenAI mission of ‘controlled, non-profit development of artificial intelligence in the interest of humanity’, while Altman, on the other hand, advocated for a faster development and market placement of OpenAI tools without restrictions.

– Microsoft, as the main investor in OpenAI, strongly supports Sam Altman. Microsoft’s strategy and significant stock value growth over the past year are based on that partnership. Somewhat predictably, the faction controlling greater capital won. If Sam Altman had not returned to OpenAI, he and Microsoft would have quickly had a replacement for OpenAI under full control of Microsoft, which would have also taken over most of OpenAI’s employees. Other fascinating elements of these events will be written about in books and made into films, and will include a greater amount of human ego, struggles for power, and roles worth tens or hundreds of billions of dollars – says Slijepčević.

Only hope remains

Tensions due to this event are still not calming down, and new details about Altman’s dismissal and return, the conflict between the two sides, and potential reasons for the disagreement are leaking daily. For instance, Reuters has just reported on the alleged reason for Altman’s dismissal.

Namely, according to people familiar with the case, in the days leading up to the controversial Altman dismissal, OpenAI researchers warned the management in a letter about a ‘major discovery in artificial intelligence’ that they fear could threaten humanity. They reportedly internally named this project Q* (pronounced Q Star).

This raises the biggest question in the whole story – how will artificial intelligence continue to develop after all these events and what impact will it have on people. A possible conclusion, says Slijepčević, is the victory of profit and a greater danger for the future of humanity because now ‘AI will develop without control’.

– However, the market competition in developing such models like ChatGPT, GPT-4, and similar ones is already unstoppable, and all leading global technology companies in the West, as well as a number of other players in China and elsewhere, are participating in it. OpenAI’s exit from the competition would change nothing – says Slijepčević, concluding that we can only ‘hope that the optimists are right and that the fascinating development of artificial intelligence does not involve hidden dangers of which we are unaware; or that humanity is wise enough to manage those dangers.’