In the latest twist in one of Silicon Valley's most dramatic boardroom showdowns, OpenAI's board has reportedly appointed former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear as the new chief executive officer, despite calls from investors to reinstate the ousted Sam Altman.
Shear will take over as CEO from Mira Murati, who was publicly aligned with Altman. This marks the third CEO transition in OpenAI in as many days.
Over the weekend, the tech industry was taken aback as OpenAI's board, led by co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, announced the removal of Altman in what is being termed an alleged coup. Altman, who co-founded the company in 2015, was ousted in a surprising move that caught even key OpenAI investor Microsoft off guard.
Also Read: Sam Altman isn't returning to OpenAI: All you need to know
The board of OpenAI said Altman was pushed out after a review found he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board. The board expressed a lack of confidence in Altman's ability to continue leading OpenAI effectively.
Who is Emmett Shear?
Born in 1983, Shear graduated from Yale University in 2005 with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science.
Until February of this year, he served as the CEO of Twitch - the gaming streaming site of Amazon.com Inc.
Also Read: Sam Altman’s ouster unlikely to impact OpenAI’s partnerships with IT companies: Experts
Shear reportedly impressed OpenAI directors because he appeared to recognise the existential threats that come along with AI.
In a recent podcast, Shear said, "I have a very specific concern about AI. We've built an intelligence, it's kind of amazing actually. It may not be the smartest intelligence but it is an intelligence. At some point, as it gets better, the kinds of problems that we'll be able to solve will include programming, chip design, material science, all of the things you'd need to design an artificial intelligence".
“At that point, you'll be able to point the thing we've built back at itself. And this will happen before you get to that point with humans in the loop; it already is happening with humans in the loop. But that loop will get tighter and faster until it can fully self-improve itself, at which point it will get very quickly. And that kind of intelligence is just an intrinsically very dangerous thing," he added.
Shear has also co-founded Justin.tv, a predecessor to Twitch, in 2006. He has also been a part-time partner at Y Combinator, an influential San Francisco startup incubator that Altman himself was head of from 2014 to 2019.
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