Before Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, spent four days away from the company, several staff researchers sent a letter to the board of directors warning of a powerful threat. the discovery of artificial intelligence, which, in their opinion, could threaten humanityTwo people familiar with the situation told Reuters about this.

The letter and the previously unpublished AI algorithm were key developments before the board ousted Altman, the face of generative AI, two of the sources said. Before his triumphant return late Tuesday, more than 700 employees threatened to quit in solidarity and join him at Microsoft.

Sources cited the letter as one of the factors in a long list of board complaints that led to Altman’s ouster. Reuters was unable to review a copy of the letter. The researchers who wrote the letter did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

According to one of the sources, the veteran executive Mira Murati mentioned a project called Q*staff on Wednesday and said the letter had been sent to the council prior to this weekend’s events.

After the news was published, an OpenAI spokeswoman said Murati told employees that the media would report on the matter, but did not comment on the accuracy of the information.

ChatGPT vendor has made progress in Q* (pronounced Q-Star), which some inside the company believe could be a breakthrough in the search for superintelligence, also known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), one of the people told Reuters. OpenAI defines AGI as artificial intelligence systems that are smarter than humans.

The new model, equipped with enormous computing resources, is capable of solving some mathematical problems, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on behalf of the company. Although it only solves math operations for elementary school students, passing these tests gives researchers great optimism about future success. Question*the source reports.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the Q* capabilities claimed by the researchers.

SUPERINTELLIGENCE

Researchers believe that mathematics is the boundary that must be crossed in the development of artificial intelligence.

Today, generative AI is good at writing and translating languages ​​by statistically predicting the next word, and the answers to the same question can vary greatly. Achieving the ability to perform mathematical calculations (when there is only one correct answer) implies that the AI ​​will have greater reasoning ability, which will resemble human intelligence. This could apply, for example, to new scientific research, AI researchers believe.

Unlike a calculator, which can only perform a limited number of operations, IAG can generalize, learn, and understand.

In their letter to the board, the researchers outlined the capabilities of AI and its potential risks, the sources said, without specifying the exact security concerns highlighted in the letter. Computer scientists have long debated the dangers posed by superintelligent machines, for example. if they can decide that they are interested in the destruction of humanity.

Against this backdrop, Altman led the effort to make ChatGPT one of the fastest-growing software applications in history and attracted the investment and computing resources from Microsoft needed to move closer to superintelligence, or IAG.

In addition to announcing a series of new tools at a demonstration this month, Altman hinted last week at a meeting of world leaders in San Francisco that he believes IAG was within reach.

“Four times in the history of OpenAI, most recently in the last two weeks, I have had the opportunity to be in the room where we were pushing back the veil of ignorance and the frontiers of discovery, and to be able to do that is the honor of my life,” he said at the Asia Summit. -Pacific Economic Cooperation.

A day later, the board fired Altman.

*Reuters. Anna Tong, Jeffrey Dustin, Crystal Hu.