Ilya Sutskever, one of the co-founders of OpenAI, has launched a new company, Secure Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), just a month after formally leaving OpenAI.
Sutskever, who was long the chief scientist at OpenAI, founded SSI with former Y Combinator partner Daniel Gross and former OpenAI engineer Daniel Levy.
At OpenAI, Sutskever was an integral part of the company's efforts to improve ai security with the rise of “super-intelligent” ai systems, an area in which he worked alongside Jan Leike, who co-led the Super Alignment team at OpenAI. However, both Sutskever and then Leike dramatically left the company in May after falling out with leadership at OpenAI over how to address ai safety. Leike now leads a team at rival ai shop Anthropic.
Sutskever has long been shedding light on the thorniest aspects of ai security. in a blog post Published in 2023, Sutskever, writing with Leike, predicted that ai with intelligence greater than that of humans could arrive within a decade, and that when it does, it will not necessarily be benevolent, requiring research into ways to control it and restrict it.
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He is clearly as committed as ever to the cause today. On Wednesday afternoon, a tweet announcing the formation of Sutskever's new company states that: “SSI is our mission, our name and our entire product roadmap, because it is our only focus. Our team, investors and business model are all aligned to achieve SSI. We approach security and capabilities together, as technical problems that must be solved through revolutionary engineering and scientific advances.”
“We plan to enhance capabilities as quickly as possible while ensuring our safety is always ahead. This way, we can climb in peace. Our singular focus means there are no distractions from management overhead or product cycles, and our business model means safety, security and progress are all insulated from short-term business pressures.”
Suction spoons ai-focused-research-lab”>spoke with Bloomberg about the new company in more detail, although he declined to discuss its financing situation or valuation.
More evident is that, unlike OpenAI, which was originally launched as a nonprofit in 2015 and then restructured when the huge sums of money required for its computing power became more obvious, SSI is being designed from the ground up as a for-profit organization. entity. Judging by the interest in ai and the team's credentials specifically, it may soon be drowning in capital as well. “Of all the problems we face,” Gross tells Bloomberg, “raising capital will not be one of them.”
SSI has offices in Palo Alto and Tel Aviv, where it is currently hiring technical talent.
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