OpenAI’s chief technology officer, Mira Murati, abruptly announced on Wednesday that she was leaving the San Francisco artificial intelligence startup.
Murati announced his decision to step down in a message to OpenAI staff and later posted on X. In the message, Murati thanked CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman, and praised the “cutting edge AI research” by the company’s staff. Murati wrote that he was stepping down because he wanted to “create time and space for my own exploration,” but said he would stay on to help with the leadership transition.
“We have been pushing the boundaries of scientific understanding to improve the well-being of humanity,” Murati told staff, “and while I’m no longer on the battlefield with you, I will continue to root for you.”
Altman responded to X’s post about her, writing, “I owe her an enormous amount of gratitude for all she has helped us build and achieve, but most of all I’m personally grateful for the support and love she’s shown us during such a difficult time. I can’t wait to see what she does next.”
Murati has worked at the startup for six and a half years, overseeing the development of the industry-changing ChatGPT, as well as AI tools DALL-E and Sora. It’s been an eventful journey. ChatGPT’s popularity after its November 2022 release took the company by surprise and brought Murati and Altman global attention. Murati appeared on the cover of Fortune magazine’s October 2023 “100 Most Powerful Women” and was named interim CEO by the board of directors when Altman was temporarily ousted from OpenAI a month later.
The lowest point of Murati’s recent tenure came in a March interview with The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern, where Murati dodged several questions about the video data used to train Sora, a text-to-video machine, first appearing unprepared and then flatly refusing to answer. It was a misstep for an executive at a company facing a major copyright lawsuit over its training methods. After the interview, Murati was hit with a torrent of criticism.
An OpenAI spokesperson declined a request for comment on Murati’s decision and referred SFGATE to the memo Murati made public.
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