Ilya Sukseker, co-founder of OpenAI, is launching a rival AI startup focused on “building superintelligence safely”, only a month after quitting the AI company due to an unsuccessful coup against its CEO Sam Altman.
According to a announcement posted on X, Sutskever launched Safe Superintelligence Inc., which bills itself as the “world’s first straight shot SSI laboratory, with one product and one goal: a superintelligence”.
Sutskever co-founded a breakaway startup in the US along with Daniel Levy, formerly of OpenAI, and AI investor Daniel Gross. Gross was a partner at Y Combinator Silicon Valley, where Altman previously ran.
Gross owns stakes in companies such as GitHub, Instacart and AI, including Perplexity.ai. Character.ai. and CoreWeave. The names of SSI’s investors were not revealed.
The three said that the “single focus” of their company was to develop safe superintelligence, a form of machine intelligence capable surpassing human cognitive abilities. The trio said the company’s “sole focus” was developing safe superintelligence — a type of machine intelligence that could surpass human cognitive abilities.
OpenAI, founded in 2015, had a similar goal to SSI. It was a non-profit research laboratory with the mission of creating superintelligent AI for humanity’s benefit. Altman says that this is still OpenAI’s guiding principal, but the company has grown rapidly under his leadership.
In a joint statement, Sutskever, his co-founders, and SSI, said that SSI has a “singular focus” which means there is no distraction from management overheads or product cycles. Our business model also means that safety, security and progress are all insulated against short-term commercial pressures. In the statement, it was also stated that the company’s headquarters will be in Palo Alto as well as Tel Aviv.
Sutskever has been hailed as one of the leading AI researchers in the world. He was a key player in OpenAI’s early leadership in the field of generative AI, the development of software which can generate multi-media responses to human questions.
OpenAI was announced after a turbulent period at the leader AI group, which was centered on disagreements about leadership and safety.
Altman was abruptly fired as CEO by OpenAI’s board in November. This move shocked both investors and employees. Altman was re-elected a few days later, but without Sutskever.
Sutskever, who had been at the company after the failed coup for several months, left in May. He said that he was “excited” for the next phase of his career, a project which is personally significant to him. Details will be shared in due course.
It is not the first instance that OpenAI employees have left the ChatGPT maker in order to create “safe” AI. Dario Amodei spun off Anthropic in 2021. He was the former head of AI Safety at the company. Anthropic has raised more than $18bn at an estimated valuation.
Jan Leike, a former colleague of Sutskever who recently left the company, stated that his disagreements with the leadership “reached a point where they could no longer be tolerated” because “safety and processes had been pushed aside in favor of shiny products”. He joined OpenAI’s rival, Anthropic.
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