Thought Leadership
One of the leading AI researchers and co-inventor of the chatbot ChatGPT has secured one billion dollars for his new start-up. The backers include well-known Silicon Valley investors such as Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia.
37-year-old Ilya Sutskever co-founded the company Safe Superintelligence in the summer after leaving the ChatGPT developer OpenAI. Their goal is to create a highly developed artificial intelligence that is safe for humans.
Five billion dollars total valuation
According to the Financial Times, Safe Superintelligence was valued at a total of five billion dollars in the financing round. The investors are therefore likely to have secured a fifth of the shares with their financial injection. According to media reports, OpenAI is currently in the process of raising fresh capital at a total valuation of 100 billion dollars.
The question of whether AI systems could become dangerous for humanity once they become more powerful and autonomous has been occupying the industry for years. There have been repeated warnings from experts and attempts by governments to minimize risks through strict regulations and reporting obligations.
“The special thing about the company is that its first product will be the secure superintelligence – and it won’t release anything else before that,” Sutskever told the financial service Bloomberg when SSI was founded. This will avoid commercial pressure and a race with other AI labs.
Failed coup against OpenAI boss
Sutskever was Head of Research at OpenAI. Last year, he was involved in the surprising dismissal of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, which was reversed just a few days later after pressure from employees and major investor Microsoft. Sutskever then remained in the background and left the ChatGPT developer in May.
dpa
