OpenAI says ousted CEO Sam Altman to return to company behind ChatGPT
San Francisco (AP/PTI): The ousted leader of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI is returning to the company that fired him late last week, the latest in a saga that has shocked the artificial intelligence industry.
San Francisco-based OpenAI said in a statement late Tuesday: "We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board" made of former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo.
OpenAI's previous board of directors, which included D'ANgelo, had refused to give specific reasons for why it fired Altman on Friday, leading to a weekend of internal conflict at the company and growing outside pressure from the startup's investors.
Microsoft, which has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and has rights to its technology, quickly moved to hire Altman on Monday, as well as another co-founder and former president, Greg Brockman, who had quit in protest after Altman's removal.
That emboldened a threatened exodus of nearly all of the startup's 770 employees who signed a letter calling for the board's resignation and Altman's return.
Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott put out a call to the startup's employees Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter: "We have seen your petition and appreciate your desire potentially to join Sam Altman at Microsoft's new AI Research Lab. Know that if needed, you have a role at Microsoft that matches your compensation and advances our collective mission."
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also made clear in a series of interviews Monday that he was still open to the possibility of Altman returning to OpenAI, so long as the startup's governance and board problems are solved.
Co-founded by Altman as a nonprofit with a mission to safely build so-called artificial general intelligence that's smarter than humans and benefits humanity, OpenAI later became a for-profit business but is still run by its nonprofit board of directors. The board was down to just four members after the departure of Altman and Brockman.
Brockman returned to social media Tuesday as if it were business as usual, touting a feature called ChatGPT Voice that was rolling out for free to everyone who uses the chatbot.
"Give it a try totally changes the ChatGPT experience," Brockman wrote, flagging a post from OpenAI's main X account that featured a demonstration of the technology playfully winking at recent turmoil.
"It's been a long night for the team and we're hungry. How many 16-inch pizzas should I order for 778 people," the person asks, using the number of people who work at OpenAI. ChatGPT's synthetic voice responded by recommending around 195 pizzas, ensuring everyone gets three slices.
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Andhra govt issues NOC to Vedanta Ltd to drill 20 onshore oil, gas wells
Amaravati (PTI): The Andhra Pradesh government has issued a conditional 'No Objection Certificate' to Vedanta Ltd (Cairn Oil & Gas Division) for drilling 20 onshore wells in Krishna district.
According to a recent Government Order, Vedanta Limited (Cairn Oil & Gas Division) has submitted a representation, stating that their firm was awarded the work of development of the Onshore Oil and Gas Field under the Discovered Small Field (DSF) Policy, 2018.
Further, they requested to grant a No Objection Certificate (NOC) for drilling wells at 35 locations in the block located in various village limits for Onshore Oil and Gas Development and Production, from the Water Resources Department of Andhra Pradesh, as the Bandar Canal passes through the centre of the proposed block.
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“After careful examination of the matter, the government hereby issues ‘No Objection Certificate’ to M/s Vedanta Limited (Cairn Oil & Gas Division), Mumbai, for drilling 20 Nos. of wells at the locations mentioned at para (2) above subject to the terms & conditions as mentioned at para (3) above,” the order said.
The Engineer-in-Chief (Irrigation), Water Resources Department, Vijayawada, the Chief Engineer, Krishna Delta System, Vijayawada, and the Collector of Krishna District shall take necessary action accordingly, it added.
According to the order, the NoC can be issued only from the irrigation point of view and is purely temporary in nature. The applicant shall obtain all required permissions from the departments concerned before commencing operations, as per norms.
No water shall be drawn from irrigation canal sources such as the Bandar Canal, KDS canal network, drainage network, ponds, reservoirs, or any other surface-water source, it said.
Cairn Oil & Gas, a division of Vedanta Limited, is India’s largest private oil and gas exploration production company, contributing approximately a quarter of the country’s domestic crude production, with a vision to increase this contribution to 50 per cent through sustainable and responsible practices.
