Tag: OpenAI

OpenAI buys a remote collaboration platform

Posted on by faz_business


OpenAI is on an M&A tear.

Days after acquiring database tech firm Rockset, OpenAI has purchased Multi (previously Remotion), a startup developing a enterprise-focused, video-first collaboration platform. A source familiar with the matter says that the deal is technically an acquihire and that most of Multi’s team — around five people — will join OpenAI following the deal’s close.

Alexander Embiricos, Multi’s CEO and one of its co-founders, says that Multi will shut down after July 24, 2024.

“We’re beyond excited to share that Multi is joining OpenAI,” he wrote in a post on Multi’s blog. “Thank you to everybody who used Multi. It was a privilege building with you, and we learned a ton from you.”

With Multi, Embiricos (an ex-Dropbox product manager) and Multi’s second co-founder, Charley Ho (an ex-Google software engineer), set out to build a Zoom-based platform designed for remote teams to work together through video chats. Multi offered features like the ability to collaborate across screen shares from up to 10 people at the same time, customizable shortcuts and automatic deep links for code, designs and documents.

According to Crunchbase data, Multi raised $13 million in cash from VCs including Greylock and First Round Capital prior to today’s exit.

As with the Rockset buy, the Multi deal seems to fit into OpenAI’s broader recent strategy of investing heavily in enterprise solutions. OpenAI recently revealed that the corporate tier of its viral AI-powered chatbot platform, ChatGPT, had close to 600,000 users, including 93% of all Fortune 500 firms.

In May, OpenAI signed an agreement with PwC to resell OpenAI’s tools to other businesses. The month before, the company launched a business-oriented custom AI model tuning and consulting program. The enterprise entreaties appear to be paying dividends, with OpenAI’s annualized revenue set to eclipse $3.4 billion this year, per a report in The Information.

Along the same vein as OpenAI’s other corporate efforts, could we one day see a spruced-up ChatGPT with videoconferencing and remote collaboration features? Maybe. I wouldn’t put it past OpenAI — particularly as the lag time between the company’s flagship models lengthens.



The Tribeca Film Festival will debut a bunch of short films made by AI

Posted on by faz_business


The Tribeca Film Festival will debut five short films made by AI, . The shorts will use OpenAI’s Sora model, which transforms . This is the first time this type of technology will take center stage at the long-running film festival.

“Tribeca is rooted in the foundational belief that storytelling inspires change. Humans need stories to thrive and make sense of our wonderful and broken world,” said co-founder and CEO of Tribeca Enterprises Jane Rosenthal. Who better to chronicle our wonderful and broken world than some lines of code owned by a company that to let CEO Sam Altman and other board members ?

The unnamed filmmakers were all given access to the Sora model, which isn’t yet available to the public, though they have to follow the terms of the agreements negotiated during the recent strikes . OpenAI’s COO, Brad Lightcap, says the feedback provided by these filmmakers will be used to “make Sora a better tool for all creatives.”

When we last covered Sora, it could only handle 60 seconds of video from a single prompt. If that’s still the case, these short films will make Quibi shows look like a Ken Burns documentary. The software also struggles with cause and effect and, well, that’s basically what a story is. However, all of these limitations come from the ancient days of February, and this tech tends to move quickly. Also, I assume there’s no rule against using prompts to create single scenes, which the filmmaker can string together to make a story.

We don’t have that long to find out if cold technology can accurately peer into our warm human hearts. The shorts will screen on June 15 and there’s a conversation with the various filmmakers immediately following the debut.

This follows a spate of agreements between . Vox Media, The Atlantic, News Corp, Dotdash Meredith and even Reddit have all struck deals with OpenAI to let the company train its models on their content. Meanwhile, Meta and Google are looking for to train its models. It looks like we are going to get this “AI creates everything” future, whether we want it or not.

Sam Altman is ‘embarrassed’ that OpenAI threatened to revoke equity if exiting employees wouldn’t sign an NDA

Posted on by faz_business


OpenAI reportedly made exiting employees choose between keeping their vested equity and being able to speak out against the company. According to , which viewed the document in question, employees could “lose all vested equity they earned during their time at the company, which is likely worth millions of dollars” if they didn’t sign a nondisclosure and non-disparagement agreement, thanks to a provision in the off-boarding papers. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed in a on Saturday evening that such a provision did exist, but said “we have never clawed back anyone’s vested equity, nor will we do that if people do not sign a separation agreement (or don’t agree to a non-disparagement agreement).”

An OpenAI spokesperson echoed this in a statement to Vox, and Altman said the company “was already in the process of fixing the standard exit paperwork over the past month or so.” But as Vox notes in its report, at least one former OpenAI employee has spoken publicly about sacrificing equity by declining to sign an NDA upon leaving. Daniel Kokotajlo recently on an online forum that this decision led to the loss of equity likely amounting to “about 85 percent of my family’s net worth at least.”

In Altman’s response, the CEO apologized and said he was “embarrassed” after finding out about the provision, which he claims he was previously unaware of. “[T]here was a provision about potential equity cancellation in our previous exit docs; although we never clawed anything back, it should never have been something we had in any documents or communication,” he wrote on X. “this is on me and one of the few times i’ve been genuinely embarrassed running openai; i did not know this was happening and i should have [sic].” In addition to acknowledging that the company is changing the exit paperwork, Altman went on to say, “[I]f any former employee who signed one of those old agreements is worried about it, they can contact me and we’ll fix that too.”

All of this comes after two more high-profile resignations from OpenAI this week. OpenAI co-founder and Chief Scientist that he was leaving the company, and was followed soon after by Jan Leike, who was a team leader on OpenAI’s .



Ilya Sutskever Quits OpenAI

Posted on by faz_business


Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s co-founder and chief scientist, announced he was leaving the company on Tuesday. OpenAI confirmed the departure in a press release. Sutskever’s official exit comes nearly six months after he helped lead an effort with other board members to fire CEO Sam Altman, the move backfired days later.

I Gave Sam Altman a Copy of My Eyeballs | Future Tech

“After almost a decade, I have made the decision to leave OpenAI,” said Sutskever via a tweet on Tuesday afternoon. “I am excited for what comes next — a project that is very personally meaningful to me about which I will share details in due time.”

“Ilya and OpenAI are going to part ways,” said Altman in a tweet shortly after. “This is very sad to me; Ilya is easily one of the greatest minds of our generation, a guiding light of our field, and a dear friend.”

Altman went on to say that Jakub Pachocki, a senior researcher on Sutskever’s team, would be replacing him as OpenAI’s Chief Scientist. Sutskever notes an undisclosed project that is very “meaningful” to him moving forward. It’s unclear at this time what that project is.

Jan Leike, another OpenAI executive who worked with Sutskever on safeguarding future AI, also resigned on Tuesday, according to The Information. Leike and Sutskever led OpenAI’s superalignment team, charged with the grandiose task of making sure the company’s super-powerful AI does not turn against humans.

For the last six months, Sutskever’s status has been unclear at OpenAI. When Altman returned to the company in late Nov. of 2023, he said this on Sutskever: “we hope to continue our working relationship and are discussing how he can continue his work at OpenAI.” Sutskever was the only member of OpenAI left in limbo at the time—neither fired nor rehired.

Since then, Altman has refused to answer questions about Sutskever’s status at the company in multiple interviews. We barely heard from Sutskever himself during this time period. This is Sutskever’s first tweet in over five months, and OpenAI’s chief scientist was missing from major announcements such as Sora and this week’s GPT-4 Omni.

Earlier this year, founding OpenAI member Andrej Karpathy left the company. In that case as well, Karpathy did not provide a particular reason for his exit, and later described that he would work on personal projects.

Sutskever posted a photo with OpenAI leaders Altman, Mira Murati, Greg Brockman, and Jakub Pachocki shortly after announcing his exit. Severa; featured in the photo posted kind messages about Sutskever’s tenure at OpenAI, praising the well-renowned scientist for his contributions to the artificial intelligence world.