ATLANTA — Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, is due to make a public appearance in Atlanta Monday, one of his first since a dramatic firing and reinstatement as chief executive last month.
According to event organizers, Altman will join a discussion with Operation HOPE at the Hyatt Regency on Peachtree Street at 4:40 p.m. A live stream of the event will be available here.
The event Monday in Atlanta is the group's 2023 Annual Meeting of the Hope Global Forums. According to organizers, Altman and Operation HOPE CEO and founder John Hope Bryant will "discuss the future of AI and how to ensure that all are protected and have the opportunity to participate in the new world of AI."
Altman will not be available for media interviews, organizers said, and it's not clear if he will discuss at all the events that transpired at OpenAI in November.
Who is Sam Altman?
Altman is the 38-year-old co-founder of OpenAI, the San Francisco-based company behind ChatGPT.
The explosion of ChatGPT since its arrival one year ago propelled Altman into the spotlight of the rapid commercialization of generative AI -- which can produce novel imagery, passages of text and other media. And as he became Silicon Valley’s most sought-after voice on the promise and potential dangers of this technology, Altman helped transform OpenAI into a world-renowned startup.
But his position at OpenAI hit some rocky turns in a whirlwind in November. Altman was fired as CEO -- and days later, he was back on the job with a new board of directors.
Within that time, Microsoft, which has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and has rights to its existing technology, helped drive Altman's return, quickly hiring him as well as another OpenAI co-founder and former president, Greg Brockman, who quit in protest after the CEO's ousting. Meanwhile, hundreds of OpenAI employees threatened to resign.
There's a lot that remains unknown about Altman's initial ousting. The initial announcement on his firing said he was “not consistently candid in his communications” with the then-board of directors, which refused to provide more specific details. Reuters reported after the firing that staff researchers had sent the now-replaced board a letter "warning of a powerful artificial intelligence discovery that they said could threaten humanity."
The news sent shockwaves throughout the AI world -- and, because OpenAI and Altman are such leading players in this space, the episode put into focus larger questions about AI's future and impact on human society that to this point had largely stayed out of the mainstream.
Unlike traditional AI, which processes data and completes tasks using predetermined rules, generative AI (including chatbots like ChatGPT) can create something new. Tech companies are still leading the show when it comes to governing AI and its risks, while governments around the world work to catch up.