OpenAI and Sam Altman have in the news for the last week for many reasons, including the firing incident and the much-anticipated return back also. But, a new story unfold today after a report written by researchers at OpenAI warning about an all-new AI discovery, Project Q* or calls as Q Star.
This new report highlights this AI breakthrough, which has been unreport so far.
This all-new revelation opens up the debate about Sam Altman’s intentions, too.
It adds that the letter could be one of the factors leading to Sam Altman’s firing.
What is Project Q*?
Base on the limited information on Project Q* share in the report, it looks like Sam Altman got a breakthrough in the company’s long search for artificial general intelligence (long for AGI).
Sam Altman’s blog earlier 2023 describe AGI as “AI systems that are generally smarter than humans.”
He also talk about how if AGI was create successfully, it could help elevate humanity by pushing the global economy.
But, Sam Altman did mention the cons of this superintelligence, “AGI would also come with serious risk of misuse, drastic accidents, and societal disruption.“
Sam Altman said in a blog from February 2023 :
“Because the upside of AGI is so great, we do not believe it is possible or desirable for society to stop its development forever; instead, society and the developers of AGI have to figure out how to get it right,”.
As per the report, Project Q* could threaten humanity, which reminds us of the Terminator movies.
Report further adds that the new model on which Sam Altman was working solve math problems, which is where it gets interesting.
Generative AI relies on mathematical models and broadly is a subset of machine learning.
For AI to solve a math problem is algorithmic as it follows a pre-defined resolution path.
To put some context, right now generative AI is mainly use in writing be it typing emails for a particular need or how Gmail utilises for predicting your next word.
The letter sent to the OpenAI board before Sam Altman was fire flag the new AI’s capabilities and stress safety concerns, which seem to be being given low priority.
OpenAI acknowledge its employees about Project Q* after this new report.
But, the exact details of what this breakthrough in AI meant was not disclose.
Full Episode of Sam Altman fire at OpenAI
As it took days for Sam Altman to be fire as the CEO and then reinstate.
In solidarity with the narrative of “OpenAI is nothing without its people”, many OpenAI staff threatened to quit after Sam Altman’s sudden firing.
— Sam Altman (@sama) November 20, 2023
Apart from staff, Sam Altman also got immense support from other senior executives like Greg Brockman, then President and co-founder at OpenAI.
But, after negotiations with the new board, Sam Altman re-join as the CEO.
While between getting fire and being reinstate, Sam Altman also got the opportunity to join Microsoft to lead a new advance AI research team.
