OpenAI successfully raised $6.6 billion in funding. This operation values the creator of ChatGPT at $157 billion. A major step for Sam Altman’s company, still unknown two years ago.
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Thanks to this fundraising, OpenAI becomes, alongside SpaceX, the space exploration company ofElon Musk and the Chinese group ByteDance, owner of TikTok, one of the three largest unlisted start-ups in the world.
The arrival of ChatGPT at the end of 2022 has democratized artificial intelligence among the general public. Now present in a large number of applications, AI is expected to help humans in their daily lives, from writing messages to creating art and education. But it also carries risks such as invasions of privacy.
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The major step for the companystill confidential two years ago, comes after a year marked by the launch of new innovative AI models, but also by numerous controversies.
Last June, the addition of voice to ChatGPT forced OpenAI to apologize to actress Scarlett Johansson for having designed a voice very close to hers, sparking controversy over the creation of voices copied from those of humans .
Tensions at the head of the company
Above all, last November, the board of directors fired Sam Altman, co-founder of OpenAI, accusing him of a lack of transparency and attention to security issues. He had been reinstated in his functions at the head of the start-up after a few days, supported by the overwhelming majority of employees and the main investor, Microsoft.
But since then, there has been a succession of departures at the top. In May, co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever left the group, as did Jan Leike, responsible for managing risks associated with generative AI. Then another co-founder, John Schulman, also disappeared, while the president, Greg Brockman, went on leave. And Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, resigned last week, remaining vague about her reasons.
Internal tensions could be linked to the recent evolution of OpenAI, originally founded in 2015, as a non-profit organization, supposed to work for the good of humanity.
Also readUnited States: Sam Altman, pioneer of artificial intelligence, leaves OpenAI