Microsoft has invested heavily in OpenAI. Sam Altman’s hasty firing by the OpenAI board therefore sparked the crisis. Microsoft CEO Nadelle made a critical move and hired Sam Altman directly at Microsoft. OpenAI, on the other hand, is replacing Sam Altman with Emmett Shear… However, OpenAI’s new boss, Emmet Shear, previously said that working at Microsoft, which has invested more than 10 billion dollars in artificial intelligence startups, is like selling your soul.
“When I was interning at Microsoft, every paycheck felt like I was getting paid for a little piece of my soul in the mail,” Shear wrote in an article on X in July. It is not known how long or when Shear worked at the tech giant.
When I was interning for Microsoft every paycheck felt like I was getting the payment for a little chunk of my soul in the mail
— Emmett Shear (@eshear) July 27, 2023
The Twitch co-founder was appointed interim OpenAI CEO on Sunday night after talks to bring back Sam Altman fell apart. In an article published in X, he said the manner in which Altman was dismissed was “very poorly handled” and “seriously damaged trust.”
Today I got a call inviting me to consider a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: to become the interim CEO of @OpenAI. After consulting with my family and reflecting on it for just a few hours, I accepted. I had recently resigned from my role as CEO of Twitch due to the birth of my…
— Emmett Shear (@eshear) November 20, 2023
His social media activities also show that he has a relatively cautious approach to artificial intelligence. In another post on X in September, Shear said that he was in favor of slowing down the development of artificial intelligence.
I specifically say I’m in favor of slowing down, which is sort of like pausing except it’s slowing down.
If we’re at a speed of 10 right now, a pause is reducing to 0. I think we should aim for a 1-2 instead.— Emmett Shear (@eshear) September 16, 2023
The revelation of Shear’s comments about working at Microsoft will certainly not help him as he tries to smooth the relationship between OpenAI and its largest investor. An unnamed source speaking to Bloomberg said that Microsoft was notified one minute in advance that Altman would be dismissed, and this angered Microsoft boss Satya Nadella.
Nadella said in an X post in which he confirmed Microsoft’s commitment to OpenAI that he “looks forward to getting to know and working with Emmett Shear and OpenAI’s new leadership team.” In the same article, he announced that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman will be joining Microsoft to lead a new artificial intelligence team.
We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap, our ability to continue to innovate with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite, and in continuing to support our customers and partners. We look forward to getting to know Emmett…
— Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) November 20, 2023