Amid Meta moves, ChatGPT-maker OpenAI says it’s shutting down operations for a week

OpenAI is giving its employees a break by shutting down operations for a week. The idea behind the break is to offer a chance to the brains behind AI to re-energise after months of intense workload, where many staffers worked 80 hours a week. But, for Meta, it is an opportunity to seize as it pulls out all the stops to get ahead in the AI race.

According to a report by Wired, OpenAI has decided to shut down next week, although executive-level employees will still be working. The decision to give employees the week off follows Meta’s all-out effort to poach talent from OpenAI.

The company’s CEO, Sam Altman, has said that the Mark Zuckerberg-led company is offering $100 million bonuses to OpenAI employees to join Meta.

‘Someone has broken into our home’

In a memo sent out to employees over Slack and accessed by Wired, OpenAI’s chief research officer, Mark Chen, said, “I feel a visceral feeling right now, as if someone has broken into our home and stolen something. Please trust that we haven’t been sitting idly by,” as he remarked on Meta’s poaching efforts.

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He further said that the company is holding high-level talks with Altman and others “around the clock to talk to those with offers,” adding, “we’ve been more proactive than ever before, we’re recalibrating comp, and we’re scoping out creative ways to recognise and reward top talent.”

Chen’s note included messages from seven other research leaders at the company, each addressing staff in what appeared to be an effort to encourage them to remain with the organisation.

One such leader said, “If they pressure you, or make ridiculous exploding offers just tell them to back off, it’s not nice to pressure people in potentially the most important decision.”

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Meta tries to get ahead in the AI race

The social media titan has invested billions of dollars in artificial intelligence technology amid fierce competition in the AI race with rivals OpenAI, Google and Microsoft. Zuckerberg said in January that the firm planned to invest at least $60 billion in AI this year, with ambitions to lead in the technology.

Zuckerberg has also reorganised the company’s artificial intelligence efforts under a new division called Meta Superintelligence Labs, according to a report by Reuters. 

The division will be headed by Alexandr Wang, former CEO of data labeling startup Scale AI. He will be the chief AI officer of the new initiative at the social media giant.

With inputs from agencies