Ilya Sutskever, the Chief Scientist at OpenAI, has announced his departure from the organization after nearly a decade of service.
His departure was revealed in a post on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter.
In his farewell message, Sutskever expressed gratitude for his time at OpenAI and voiced confidence in the company’s continued progress toward building safe and beneficial Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
“After almost a decade, I have made the decision to leave OpenAI. The company’s trajectory has been nothing short of miraculous, and I’m confident that OpenAI will build AGI that is both safe and beneficial under the leadership of @sama, @gdb, @miramurati and now, under the excellent research leadership of @merettm. It was an honor and a privilege to have worked together, and I will miss everyone dearly. So long, and thanks for everything. I am excited for what comes next — a project that is very personally meaningful to me about which I will share details in due time,” he posted.
Responding to Sutskever’s announcement, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expressed sadness at the departure of one of the “greatest minds” of their generation.
Altman acknowledged Sutskever’s significant contributions to OpenAI’s mission and expressed gratitude for their collaboration.
He said: “Ilya and OpenAI are going to part ways. This is very sad to me; Ilya is easily one of the greatest minds of our generation, a guiding light of our field, and a dear friend.
“OpenAI would not be what it is without him. Although he has something personally meaningful he is going to go work on, I am forever grateful for what he did here and committed to finishing the mission we started together.
“I am happy that for so long I got to be close to such genuinely remarkable genius, and someone so focused on getting to the best future for humanity.”
Altman in his post also revealed that Jakub Pachocki, who has been with OpenAI and has led many of the organization’s critical projects, will be replacing Sutskever as Chief Scientist.
The post continued: “Jakub is going to be our new Chief Scientist. Jakub is also easily one of the greatest minds of our generation; I am thrilled he is taking the baton here. He has run many of our most important projects, and I am very confident he will lead us to make rapid and safe progress towards our mission of ensuring that AGI benefits everyone.”
