Meera Murati stepped down as OpenAI’s chief technology officer on Wednesday. He is the latest to join the company’s high-profile exit list. Ms Muratti’s decision comes after six years with the artificial intelligence pioneer behind ChatGPT.
In a post on X, Ms Muratti described her time at OpenAI as “an extraordinary privilege” and her decision to leave as “difficult”. “There is never a perfect time to move away from a place one loves, but the moment feels right. I want to create the time and space to do my research,” he said.
I shared the following note with the OpenAI team today. pic.twitter.com/nsZ4khI06P
— Mira Murati (@miramurati) September 25, 2024
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded with a heartfelt tribute to X, thanking him for his contributions and expressing his support. “It’s hard to overstate how much Mira means to OpenAI, our work, and all of us personally,” the CEO wrote. “I feel so grateful to her for her help in creating and fulfilling us.”
“She’s excited about what she’s going to do next,” he said.
I replied to this. Meera, thanks for everything.
It’s hard to overstate how much Mira means to OpenAI, our work, and all of us personally.
I feel so grateful to her for helping us build and achieve, but most of all I feel personal…
— Sam Altman (@sama) September 25, 2024
Mira Murati, 35, was instrumental in developing ChatGPT and overseeing the releases of image generator Dall-E and AI code generator Codex. He left after a brief stint as interim CEO following Mr Altman’s ouster last November.
Sam Altman announced Mark Chennai as senior vice president of research and Josh Atchiam as head of mission alignment.
Mira Muratti’s departure follows co-founders Greg Brockman (on extended leave) and John Shulman (joining competitor Anthropic), as well as a product team leader and former Meta employee. Earlier this year, co-founder Ilya Sutzkever left OpenAI after a boardroom controversy. MS Murati’s exit leaves only two of its 11 founders.
The shakeup comes as OpenAI unveils its new Strawberry AI model, designed to improve “thinking” in the AI chatbots it creates. The company aims to provide “hallucinations” — persuasive but false content — and provide more accurate answers.
