Following a report final week about Apple holding inside talks over a possible Perplexity acquisition, Mark Gurman’s newest Energy On publication revealed that Apple additionally explored a doable take care of one other notable identify within the AI area: Mira Murati. Right here’s what went down.
Murati, greatest often called OpenAI’s former Chief Expertise Officer, left the corporate final 12 months following the boardroom chaos that briefly noticed CEO Sam Altman ousted.
The truth is, as detailed within the ebook “The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future”, Murati and OpenAI co-founder and Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever have been key gamers behind the scenes within the surreal boardroom coup that briefly ousted Altman.
Murati even spent a number of hours as OpenAI’s interim CEO earlier than, in an ironic twist, threatening to stop except Altman was reinstated. By that time, it was clear the coup had failed, and Murati, like others concerned, backtracked in an effort to avoid wasting each the corporate. And their very own jobs.
Lower than a 12 months later, Murati left OpenAI and based a brand new AI startup known as Pondering Machines Lab (by then, Ilya Sutskever had additionally left to discovered his personal firm, Secure SuperIntelligence). And now, in keeping with Gurman, it seems Apple met together with her earlier this 12 months to debate a possible acquisition.
What’s Pondering Machines Lab?
Murati’s firm is the right portrait of the present AI panorama: Whereas it doesn’t have a product but, it has simply closed the most important seed spherical ever for any firm, with a $2 billion fundraise led by Andreessen Horowitz. That positioned the corporate’s valuation at a whopping US$10 billion.
To this point, what has been made public about Pondering Machine Labs is its goal, which is to construct “a future the place everybody has entry to the information and instruments to make AI work for his or her distinctive wants and objectives.”
Right here’s an excerpt from their launch manifesto, which you’ll be able to learn in full on their web site:
“The scientific neighborhood’s understanding of frontier AI methods lags behind quickly advancing capabilities. Data of how these methods are educated is concentrated inside the high analysis labs, limiting each the general public discourse on AI and other people’s skills to make use of AI successfully. And, regardless of their potential, these methods stay troublesome for folks to customise to their particular wants and values. To bridge the gaps, we’re constructing Pondering Machines Lab to make AI methods extra broadly understood, customizable and customarily succesful.”
As for Apple’s curiosity within the firm, not like the continuing inside evaluations round Perplexity, the conversations with Murati reportedly “by no means progressed”. Right here’s Gurman:
“Individually, Apple met earlier this 12 months with Mira Murati — the previous chief expertise officer of OpenAI — to debate a possible deal for her new AI startup, Pondering Machines Lab. The talks by no means progressed to a complicated stage.”
9to5Mac’s Take
Nonetheless, I’ll eat my hat if Apple shouldn’t be speaking to each different promising AI startup on the market, equally crammed to the brim with gifted engineers, together with Ilya Sutskever’s Secure SuperIntelligence, or the French startup Mistral.
To be completely trustworthy, Perplexity looks like the worst cultural match from the bunch, having had its share of drama and controversy about knowledge assortment. And whereas the corporate appears to be doing higher now, and does supply a compelling product, it is usually nonetheless concerned in additional authorized issues than Apple would most likely prefer to take over if it have been to chop a verify.
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