Who is Mira Murati, the new interim CEO of OpenAI replacing Sam Altman?

After the dramatic ouster of Sam Altman, Mira Murati has been appointed interim CEO of OpenAI. The announcement was made in the same statement that confirmed Altman’s sudden exit. OpenAI’s board said in a statement that Altman’s departure “follows a deliberative review process” which concluded “he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.” “The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI,” it added.

OpenAI announces leadership transition https://t.co/fFYDLwGXQz

— OpenAI (@OpenAI) November 17, 2023

Operations at OpenAI are expected to continue smoothly given that Murati has been part of the company’s C-suite for some time now. Here is all we know about the new interim CEO of the most hyped company in the tech world. About Mira Murati Born and raised in Albania to Albanian parents, she moved to Canada to attend Pearson College UWC at 16. She graduated from the US’s Ivy League Dartmouth College with a degree in mechanical engineering. According to the New York Times, she constructed a hybrid race car as her final project while still a student. Her professional journey began as an intern at Goldman Sachs, followed by Zodiac Aerospace. She then worked on the Model X for Tesla for three years. Tech Crunch claims that Murati became the vice president of product and engineering at sensor startup Leap Motion in 2016. After two years, she resigned from the company to become the vice president of partnerships and applied AI at OpenAI. “Both in my time at Tesla, and at a VR Company (Leap Motion) I was doing applications of AI in the real world. I very quickly believed that AGI would be the last and most important major technology that we built, and I wanted to be at the heart of it,” Murati told Wired in a July interview this year. In 2018, Murati started working on supercomputing as part of OpenAI. She was elevated to chief technology officer in 2022. The 34-year-old former CTO of OpenAI has been described as the brilliant mind behind the development of OpenAI’s revolutionary products like ChatGPT and DALL-E. She was tasked with overseeing ChatGPT’s distribution last year. Under Mira Murati’s direction, OpenAI turns scholarly research into useful products, increasing accessibility to AI. According to NDTV, a group of outstanding scientists and this strategy have generated a great deal of public interest in AI. According to Moneycontrol, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella believes Murati has “a demonstrated ability to assemble teams with technical expertise, commercial acumen and a deep appreciation for the importance of mission… As a result, she has helped build some of the most exciting AI technologies we’ve ever seen.” Murati is trilingual, speaking Italian, Albanian and English. The challenges and opportunities In a TIME magazine interview, Murati talked about the difficulties she had while using ChatGPT and the possible effects of AI technology on society and education. She emphasised that ChatGPT, like other large-scale language models, has its share of issues as a conversational model. She stated that the main concern is that the model might produce false information, which is a typical problem with such big neural networks. Still, she saw it as a tool that might completely transform education by providing individualised instruction. She told Time that people with different learning styles and experiences could particularly benefit from this. Murati pushed for more people outside of tech corporations to be involved in determining AI policy. In order to ensure responsible use in line with society norms, she underlined the need for involvement from regulators, governments, and varied stakeholders, while also emphasising the duty of firms such as OpenAI. According to Murati, the goal is to move AI capabilities closer to autonomous thought, a CNBC report said. She emphasised the necessity of “new ideas” in order to get towards a universally intelligent system that can reason abstractly in a manner similar to that of ground-breaking theories like general relativity. Murati on deepfakes In addition to ChatGPT, Murati was in charge of marketing Dall-E, an AI model that turns text into images. After deepfake videos featuring actors Rashmika Mandanna, Katrina Kaif, and Kajol went popular, both of OpenAI’s products have gained attention. Speaking on a talk show, Murati described how the corporation is utilising its capabilities to stop the generation of morphed media. “We have chosen to make Dall-E available to the public but with certain guardrails and with certain constraints,” she said while speaking to comedian Trevor Noah last year, adding, “We do want people to understand what AI is capable of. But right now, we don’t feel very comfortable around the mitigation of misinformation, and so we do have certain guardrails.” Shift in control Murati’s appointment follows OpenAI’s recent announcement of Sam Altman’s departure as co-founder and CEO. According to the company, an internal review revealed Altman’s inconsistent lack of transparency in communications with the board of directors, which caused the board to lose faith in his ability to effectively lead OpenAI. Sam Altman confirmed on Friday on X that he was quitting OpenAI, although he made no mention of the charges made by the company’s board of directors. “I loved my time at OpenAI. It was transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit. Most of all, I loved working with such talented people. Will have more to say about what’s next later,” he said in a post on X.

i loved my time at openai. it was transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit. most of all i loved working with such talented people.

will have more to say about what’s next later.

🫡

— Sam Altman (@sama) November 17, 2023

Soon after Altman’s dismissal, co-founder Greg Brockman also left the company, stating that his decision was based on the latest development. “I’m super proud of what we’ve all built together since starting in my apartment eight years ago. We’ve been through tough and great times together, accomplishing so much despite all the reasons it should have been impossible. But based on today’s news, I quit,” he said on the micro-blogging site.

After learning today’s news, this is the message I sent to the OpenAI team: https://t.co/NMnG16yFmm pic.twitter.com/8x39P0ejOM

— Greg Brockman (@gdb) November 18, 2023

Sam and I are shocked and saddened by what the board did today.

Let us first say thank you to all the incredible people who we have worked with at OpenAI, our customers, our investors, and all of those who have been reaching out.

We too are still trying to figure out exactly…

— Greg Brockman (@gdb) November 18, 2023

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In another tweet shared today, Brockman also revealed how the series of event unfolded and how the company told him that he was being removed from the board, however, “was vital to the company and would retain his role.” With inputs from agencies