VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -

This article is an adaptation of a post originally made on Gary Marcus’ Substack.

Last year was, without question, OpenAI’s year.

ChatGPT, a product that the company released at the end of November 2022, took the world by storm - by early 2023, over 100 million users had adopted it. Virtually every major media outlet covered it, most many times - some examples include “5 ways ChatGPT can help your love life,” your pet, and so on - and most major companies began to experiment with it. Google struggled to keep up, while the shares of Microsoft - which has a large stake in OpenAI - jumped by nearly 50 percent. 

AI was on everybody’s lips, and OpenAI became central to virtually every discussion about AI. OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman was ubiquitous, testifying at the United States Senate - I sat beside him, as senators addressed him by his first name - and made a world tour, meeting national leaders as if he were royalty.

Suddenly, and with little warning, the world got a hint that something was not altogether right. On November 17th, the company’s Board unexpectedly fired Altman, claiming that he was “not consistently candid.” Altman was dramatically rehired a few days later, but perhaps his aura was diminished. Despite enormous support from his employees, Altman and his long-time collaborator Greg Brockman were taken off OpenAI’s board, while The Information and others reported that Altman had agreed to an internal investigation into “alleged c