The Anthropic logo can be seen in an illustration dated March 31, 2023, according to REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration. OpenAI’s board of directors recently approached rival Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, about replacing their current chief executive, Sam Altman, and the possibility of merging the two AI startups. However, Amodei declined both proposals as reported by The Information on Monday. OpenAI, led by board member Adam D’Angelo, did not comment on the matter. In response to the news, Anthropic has offered ex-Twitch CEO Emmett Shear the position of interim chief, which he has accepted. Meanwhile, Microsoft has hired Altman and other key personnel from OpenAI as employees. This decision has caused unrest within OpenAI as nearly all of its 700 employees have threatened to quit and one of its four-person board members has already resigned.
Anthropic is a startup founded in 2019 by former executives at OpenAI who left due to disagreements over the safe development and governance of AI. Anthropic secured investments from Google and Amazon and has gained prominence with its Claude AI models alongside OpenAI’s GPT series. Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco and Urvi Dugar in Bengaluru reported on this story for Reuters. Dastin is a correspondent who focuses on technology and artificial intelligence and holds a degree in history from Yale University. He was part of a team that examined Amazon’s global lobbying efforts and won a SOPA Award in 2022 for his work.
The co-founders of Anthropic split from their previous employer in 2020 due to disagreements over the safe development and governance of AI. They have since secured investments from Google and Amazon and have gained prominence with their Claude AI models alongside OpenAI’s GPT series.
OpenAI’s board of directors recently approached rival Anthropic’s CEO about replacing their current chief executive Sam Altman and merging the two AI startups.
However, Amodei declined both proposals as reported by The Information on Monday.
OpenAI has since offered ex-Twitch CEO Emmett Shear the position of interim chief for which he accepted.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has hired Altman and other key personnel from OpenAI as employees.
This decision has caused unrest within OpenAI as nearly all of its 700 employees have threatened to quit
