ChatGPT owner OpenAI has bolstered its team of artificial intelligence experts by bringing in a top scientist in the field from tech giant Microsoft.
Sebastien Bubeck is VP AI and Distinguished Scientist at Microsoft, having worked at the company for over a decade.
It comes in the wake of reported restructuring plans at OpenAI, with some of its key personnel announcing their departure in recent weeks. Not to mention the comings and goings of its CEO Sam Altman.
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Originally reported by The Information (paywall), a Microsoft statement confirmed Bubeck’s departure, saying that the move aimed to further his knowledge of artificial general intelligence (AGI).
“Sebastian has decided to leave Microsoft to further his work toward developing AGI.” – Microsoft spokesperson
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Microsoft and OpenAI have worked closely with one another over the last couple of years, with the former announcing last year that it was investing further billions of dollars in the latter to consolidate their “long-term partnership” that began in 2019. The integration of OpenAI’s GPT-4 Turbo within Microsoft Copilot is a recent example of their collaborative spirit.
And although some commentators are suggesting that competition is growing between the two companies, Bubeck’s change of allegiances appears to be amicable.
“We appreciate the contributions Sebastian has made to Microsoft and look forward to continuing our relationship through his work with OpenAI,” said Microsoft’s statement.
Who is Sebastien Bubeck?
Bubeck has previously been thought of as a key player in Microsoft’s AI team. He has acted as a face for the company’s developments in the area – back in April, for example, he helped launch Microsoft’s new Phi-3-Mini AI chatbot model.
Before joining Microsoft as a Researcher in the July of 2014, Bubeck was an assistant professor at Princeton University (according to his LinkedIn profile). He was made Vice President of GenAI Research at the start of this year.
Having started his research career looking at “convex optimization, online algorithms and adversarial robustness in machine learning”, Bubeck’s personal website says that he is now more interested in “understanding how intelligence emerges in large language models, and how to use this understanding to improve LLMs’ intelligence, possibly towards building AGI”.
OpenAI’s Open Door
Bubeck’s appointment will be welcome news for OpenAI investors, who may still be reeling from the news last month that Chief Technology Officer and former CEO Mira Muti was leaving the company.
That followed the announcement of the departure of three other key executives: Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew, VP of Post Training Barret Zoph and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever.
OpenAI’s most high-profile exit – and subsequent return – in the last 12 months, however, was that of co-founder Sam Altman. He was fired last November for, the company said, failing to be “consistently candid in his communications with the board”.
Microsoft themselves then hired Altlman to lead its AI team, before he was eventually reinstated by OpenAI just a few weeks later.
