Sam Altman Says Microsoft Will Take Non-Voting, Observer Role on OpenAI’s Board

Microsoft is set to assume a non-voting observer position on OpenAI's board, as announced by CEO Sam Altman.This strategic move allows Microsoft's representative to actively participate in OpenAI's board meetings and gain access to confidential information.

However, crucial decision-making processes, including the election or selection of directors, will not include Microsoft's voting rights. This decision comes in the wake of statements from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, highlighting the need for governance changes within the organization.

Microsoft's Non-Voting and Observer Role

OpenAI has recently introduced a revamped board, with Bret Taylor, former Salesforce co-CEO, serving as chair and Larry Summers, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, also joining.

Added to this new board is Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo, who was also a part of the previous board that dismissed Altman.

In the meantime, the organization seeks six additional members with expertise across technology, policy, and safety.

The board restructuring also involves the exclusion of OpenAI's chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, who also played a role in Altman's initial removal but later expressed regret and supported Altman's return.

Meanwhile, the reinstatement of Sam Altman as OpenAI's CEO, after a brief ouster, has been accompanied by organizational changes, including the return of Mira Murati as Chief Technology Officer and Greg Brockman as president.

Altman also stated how vital his partnership with Brockman will be in running the company.

Microsoft's commitment to invest over $10 billion in OpenAI solidifies its position as a major stakeholder, holding 49% ownership of the company.But for now, the company has yet to respond immediately to inquiries regarding this development.

This latest update provides a glimpse into the evolution of OpenAI's leadership and governance, with Microsoft playing a significant role in shaping the organization's future direction.

Other Remarkable Developments Around OpenAI

In the days leading up to this event, OpenAI made a remarkable move by introducing the next-generation model of GPT-4.Information in the company's post states that it created the initial version of GPT-4 in March, which became available to developers in July.

November 6 marks the unveiling of the GPT-4 Turbo, the next-generation model with enhanced capabilities and knowledge extended up to April 2023. It has a substantial 128k context window and can accommodate over 300 pages of text in a single prompt.

Notably, performance optimizations enable GPT-4 Turbo to offer a 3x reduction in the price of input tokens and a 2x reduction for output tokens compared to GPT-4. Paying developers can explore GPT-4 Turbo through the API using the identifier gpt-4-1106-preview, with plans to release the stable production-ready model soon.

Regarding function calling updates, developers can now instruct the model to execute multiple functions in a single message, streamlining interactions.

For instance, users can issue a command like open the car window and turn off the A/C" in one message, eliminating the need for multiple roundtrips with the model.

Additionally, improvements in function calling accuracy ensure that GPT-4 Turbo is more adept at returning the correct function parameters.

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