Having read the article I do get the feeling that safety is an underlying current in most of her answers. This certainly gives weight to this being a safety first camp vs growth first camp theory. I hope they don't slow down the pace of innovation too much as there are many startups just waiting for a few improvements here or there before something else becomes viable. And given her answer to the following question I am somewhat optimistic:
Steven: "[...] By putting things like GPT-4 in the wild, it’s almost like you’re forcing the public to deal with those issues [...]"
Mira: "[...] especially as the technological progress continues to be so rapid. It's futile to resist it. I think it's important to embrace it and figure out how it's going to go well."
Context for those inclined to ignore this as something that couldn't possibly have been researched in the time aloted:
“This interview was conducted in July 2023 for WIRED’s cover story on OpenAI. It is being published today after Sam Altman’s sudden departure to provide a glimpse at the thinking of the powerful AI company’s new boss.”
“My background is in engineering, and I worked in aerospace, automotive, VR, and AR. Both in my time at Tesla [where she shepherded the Model X], and at a VR company [Leap Motion] I was doing applications of AI in the real world.”
Coincidentally, that reads like the LinkedIn of some of the most utterly clueless, dishonest, resume padding colleagues I've worked with. Not saying that's what's going on here, though I'd urge caution with taking statements like this at face value.
Right, the CTO that of the leading artificial intelligence company in the world, which just got the CEO position, is really just padding her LinkedIn. /s
Obviously an interview is an opportunity to promote herself and her achievements, but that doesn't make it remotely similar to a self-important blowhard writing about themselves in a place that precisely three other people will ever read, and zero other people will take seriously.
It sounds like she had a lot of experience with finite state machines and then using expert systems to tie neural network/fuzzy logic systems together. All those companies were really relevant to the robotics/sensor fusion/IoT crowd which oversaw the prelude to this AI renaissance.
It has been established that visionaries don't always need to come from a coding background. Often those who aren't can offer diverse viewpoints that are not restricted by the current technology limitations.
It does seem kind of crazy how much negativity there is in the replies to this post and while non stand out as particularly misogynistic on their own... the sheer number of doubters does seem damning.
Being appointed CEO of the company at the forefront of possibly the the most disruptive tech innovation since (you decide) without substantial related prior experience is bound to result in skeptics. Perhaps it's exactly what's needed.
- 6 years of experience including stints as a PM at Tesla and some experience at Goldman and LeapMotion
- joined OpenAI in 2018, shortly became CTO and now CEO
While credentialism and gatekeeping is all too prominent in society today, for Mira I have serious doubts about her capacity as a leader. A serious lack of experience in all aspects
A little late to doubt her isn't it? Do you think she's just been sitting quietly in a corner for the last 5 years at OpenAI while it turned the entire tech industry upside down?
True. She's the only person in the executive team that didn't come into OpenAI with pre-existing clout. They appointed her CTO with only a few years of engineering experience and now CEO. She must be a phenomenon.
Why would anybody in her position ever take the job? How’s she going to smooth things over between that board and Nadella, considering he put in $10bn and they ousted both the chairman and CEO without telling him?
No argument to the first point. However on the 2nd, the competitors are far behind. We could speculate that competitive offerings will equal ChatGPT4 in (X time period), but for all we know that's also when ChatGPT5 comes out. Just because others are trying to compete doesn't mean they're competitive. Right now OpenAI dominates the market. So they have the power in the negotiations.
I wonder why you would have doubts about someone you clearly don't know anything about? Before becoming a partner and then CEO of YC, Sam Altman was a founder of Loopt (failed startup). I was surprised at his sudden rise at YC but it seemed to work out. No reason why this shouldn't be the case here.
Just the first two bullet points alone are pretty astounding. Entering the game with a solid but not exactly rare undergraduate degree in 2012 and straight up to PM on a major product line at Tesla just a few years later, is already quite an incredible turn of fortune.
I would not have expected anything less than a decade of solid industry experience combined with, at least a technically-weighted MBA or a masters in engineering in such a role.
I worked with her at Leap Motion, and found her to be incredibly intelligent, charismatic, energetic, compassionate, and candid. I think she will dazzle.
This _person_ has worked and was rapidly promoted to leadership positions at two of the companies that have extremely outsized reputations for technical proficiency, during periods which both companies achieved dramatic successes...
but somehow, somehow, there are doubts about _her_?
Steven: "[...] By putting things like GPT-4 in the wild, it’s almost like you’re forcing the public to deal with those issues [...]"
Mira: "[...] especially as the technological progress continues to be so rapid. It's futile to resist it. I think it's important to embrace it and figure out how it's going to go well."