--- title: "OpenAI Scientist Ousted After Failed Coup Against Sam Altman Is Starting a New AI Company" description: "After leaving OpenAI, founding member and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever is starting his own firm to build \"safe\" superintelligence." date: "2024-06-20" modified: "2024-06-20" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/ilya-sutskever-openai-new-venture" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "OpenAI" tags: - "artificial superintelligence" - "ilya sutskever" - "OpenAI" - "the digest" --- # OpenAI Scientist Ousted After Failed Coup Against Sam Altman Is Starting a New AI Company ![After leaving OpenAI, founding member and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever is starting his own firm to build "safe" superintelligence.]() *\Image: Jack Guez / AFP via Getty / Futurism\* ## Keep It Vague After leaving OpenAI under a dark cloud, founding member and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever is starting his own firm to bring about "safe" artificial superintelligence. In a [post on X-formerly-Twitter](), the man who [orchestrated]() OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's temporary ouster — and who was [left in limbo]() for six months over it before his ultimate [departure last month]() — said that he's "starting a new company" that he calls Safe Superintelligence Inc, or SSI for short. "We will pursue safe superintelligence in a straight shot, with one focus, one goal, and one product," [Sutskever continued]() in a subsequent tweet. "We will do it through revolutionary breakthroughs produced by a small cracked team." Questions abound. Did Sutskever mean a "crack team"? Or his new team "cracked" in some way? Regardless, in an [interview with *Bloomberg*]() about the new venture, Sutskever elaborated somewhat but kept things familiarly vague. "At the most basic level, safe superintelligence should have the property that it will not harm humanity at a large scale,” he told the outlet. "After this, we can say we would like it to be a force for good. We would like to be operating on top of some key values. Some of the values we were thinking about are maybe the values that have been so successful in the past few hundred years that underpin liberal democracies, like liberty, democracy, freedom." So, you know, nothing too difficult. ## AI Guys Though not stated explicitly, that comment harkens back somewhat to the headline-grabbing Altman sacking that Sutskever led last fall. While it remains unclear exactly why Sutskever and some of his fellow former OpenAI board members turned against Altman in last November's "[turkey-shoot clusterf\*ck]()," there was some speculation that it had to do with [safety concerns about a secretive high-level AI project]() called Q\* — pronounced "queue-star" — that [Altman]() et al have [refused to speak about](). With the emphasis on "safety" in Sutskever's new venture making its way into the project's very name, it's easy to see a link between the two. In that same *Bloomberg* interview, Sutskever was vague not only about his specific reasons for founding the new firm but also about how it plans to make money — though according to one of his cofounders, former Apple AI lead Daniel Gross, money is no issue. "Out of all the problems we face," Gross told the outlet, "raising capital is not going to be one of them." While SSI certainly isn't the only OpenAI competitor [pursuing higher-level AI](), its founders' resumes lend it a certain cachet — and its route to incorporation has been, it seems, paved with some lofty intentions. **More on OpenAI:** [*It Turns Out Apple Is Only Paying OpenAI in Exposure*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()