The Download: OpenAI’s dramatic breakdown, and Meta’s transparency library
The past few days have been a fever dream in the AI world. The board of OpenAI, the world’s hottest AI company, shocked everyone by firing CEO Sam Altman. Cue an AI-safety coup, chaos, and a new job at Microsoft for Altman.
The news has sent shockwaves through the industry, particularly because Altman has become generative AI’s poster boy over the past year. Hundreds of OpenAI employees have since signed a letter threatening to quit, following in the footsteps of a number of senior workers who chose to resign in support. It’s clear that AI’s biggest player is in a state of flux.
If you’ve been offline, our AI experts Melissa Heikkilä and Will Douglas Heaven have drawn up a blow-by-blow timeline of what happened, and what all the drama means for the AI industry as a whole. Read the full story.
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Want to learn more about the latest goings-on at OpenAI? Join MIT Technology Review’s AI team Will Douglas Heaven and Melissa Heikkilä, along with executive editor Niall Firth for a virtual event as they dissect this news at 11am ET on Wednesday. We’ll have more details on how to sign up in tomorrow’s edition of The Download, so stay tuned!
Meta is giving researchers more access to Facebook and Instagram data
The news: Meta is releasing a new transparency product called the Meta Content Library and API. The new tool will allow select researchers to access publicly available data on Facebook and Instagram in an effort to give a more overarching view of what’s happening on the platforms.
