OpenAI co-founder decides to resign after failed attempt to remove Sam Altman

OpenAI's co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever has decided to leave the tech firm behind generative AI chatbot ChatGPT, months after the infamous failed coup against company's Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman.

Sutskever, who tried to remove Altman and later changed his mind, has officially left the company, The Verge reported.

Both Sutskever, 37, and Altman, 39, took to social media to announce that the company and its chief scientist have parted ways.

In a post on X, Sutskever stated: "After almost a decade, I have made the decision to leave OpenAI."

Later in his post, he added: "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."

Meanwhile, Altman announced on X: "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."

He added: "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."

Altman also named company’s director of research, Jakub Pachocki, as OpenAI's new chief scientist.

According to an OpenAI press release, Pachocki has been "spearheading the development of GPT-4 and OpenAI Five, and fundamental research in large-scale RL and deep learning optimization."

Additionally, The Verge confirmed that Jan Leike — who led the Superalignment team Sutskever stood up to "steer and control" more powerful AI — has also resigned from OpenAI.

He will be replaced by John Schulman, another OpenAI co-founder who sided with Altman during the failed board coup from last year.