Whatever is happening inside OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, it’s messy and things turned uglier when co-founder Greg Brockman was also removed from his position as president and chairman, followed by over 600 OpenAI employees threatening to quit and join Microsoft if Altman is not reinstated as CEO. 

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, according to a couple of insider reports, is said to not be happy about the situation. And who could blame him? It wasn’t too long ago when Microsoft just announced their big partnership with OpenAI. In fact, ChatGPT is the basis of their Copilot, Microsoft’s AI assistant that will roll out across Windows and Microsoft 365 platforms. To further heighten their AI ambitions, Microsoft has started creating their own custom chips for AI infrastructure. 

Right now it doesn’t seem like Sam Altman and his legion will be joining Microsoft. Instead, OpenAI investors, people who have more power than the board–because money talks–are in discussion with Altman to be reinstated. And, of course, he has conditions. Among them is the removal of the board who had ousted him. 

It’s important to note that there are two kinds of governance around OpenAI. The non-profit board, the people who have kicked Altman out. And the investors. Nadella mentioned that they will be having a talk with OpenAI in changing how governance works. We can speculate that it would mean giving investors more power.

The exact reasoning of the board’s decision to let Atlman go remains vague. But it all boils down to Altman not being transparent enough to the board. As of this writing, Altman is in discussions with OpenAI investors, who have more power over the board. They want Altman to return as CEO. So far, the news is, if Altman is to return, he would need a couple of changes, which includes the removal of the board who have ousted him.

That’s basically what’s happening with OpenAI right now. Why are we writing about it now?

Sam Altman has been the face of OpenAI, the company that started the AI craze. Their products include DALL-E, an AI that generates images, and ChatGPT. Many big tech companies today are developing AI and are banking AI as the next biggest thing ever. Some examples of companies using and developing AI right now are Meta and NVIDIA to create new features. Microsoft partnered with OpenAI to power Copilot, Microsoft’s newest assistant tool for users. 

Ideally, Copilot is designed to be able to handle about half of user workloads. It will be able to generate your spreadsheets with the formula you need, organize your notes, and have capabilities to search through your emails and documents in order to easily provide you with the information you need. 

Generative AI has the power to create visual artworks and compose written texts, a clear existential threat to all artists and writers as companies shift toward AI. Many companies, however, have expressed that AI will not replace humans in the workplace. Most likely because, a project that would normally take a team of ten can now be done by a team of three, meaning companies aren’t technically “replacing” humans with AI, they would just be hiring less people while “providing them with advanced tools to simplify work tasks.”. And for humans who would retain their jobs, however, they have to switch job descriptions, from–let’s say–graphic designer to something like prompt engineer–people who type in descriptions of what they want the AI to generate. 

AI right now is also able to mimic the voice of actual humans, create music, and even create likeness of people for videos. There are visions right now for people to even generate their own movies–Why would people do that instead of just looking for a good movie is beyond me (maybe they want to have an infinite number of Iron Man movies with RDJ as the lead? Sounds apocalyptic to me)–and if movie generation becomes a thing, that requires a massive shift in the movie industry as well. 

There is more! Unity, once a favorite of small or starting independent game developers, has announced that Unity 6 will have AI capabilities called Unity Muse. This is one of the AI capabilities that can actually write code. In the near future, once AI has perfected its own coding capabilities, would we have any need for coders at all?

The OpenAI shakeup is only a speed bump in the AI race. There will be more restructuring and changes across AI companies in the future. AI is here to stay. And there is room for it to grow and coexist with humans. As we always say in the MB TechNews, we should be the ones to drive technology, not technology driving us. Learning the events unfolding within the AI space can help us prepare more for the future. 

In the meantime, can’t NASA send an AI up to some remote planet to try to terraform it?