OpenAI CTO Mira Murati Resigns After Six Years: What’s Next?

Mira Murati, Chief Technology Officer at OpenAI, has announced her departure from the company. In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), Murati shared that she is stepping away from her role after more than six years with the AI powerhouse to pursue her own endeavors.

“After much reflection, I have made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI,” Murati wrote in her post. “There’s never an ideal time to step away from a place one cherishes, yet this moment feels right … My six-and-a-half years with the OpenAI team have been an extraordinary privilege.”

OpenAI has not provided additional comments, directing inquiries to Murati’s statement on social media. In response, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expressed his gratitude for Murati’s contributions, stating, “We’ll say more about the transition plans soon, but for now, I want to take a moment to just feel thanks. I feel tremendous gratitude towards her for what she has helped us build and accomplish, but I most of all feel personal gratitude towards her for the support and love during all the hard times.”

A Key Figure in OpenAI’s Evolution

Murati joined OpenAI in 2018 as Vice President of Applied AI and Partnerships. Her work was pivotal in the development of key AI projects, including the groundbreaking chatbot ChatGPT, the image-generation model DALL-E, and the code-generating system Codex, which powers GitHub’s Copilot. Promoted to CTO in 2022, Murati has been a prominent voice in the AI community, often making headlines for her bold statements and vision for the future of artificial intelligence.

Before joining OpenAI, Murati held several influential roles across tech and engineering sectors. She graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering from Dartmouth College and started her career as an intern at Goldman Sachs and Zodiac Aerospace. Murati later joined Tesla as a senior product manager for the Model X, where she played a key role in the development of the company’s Autopilot driver-assistance software. She also served as VP of Product and Engineering at Leap Motion, a startup focused on hand- and finger-tracking motion sensors for PCs.

A Controversial Figure in the AI Space

Throughout her tenure at OpenAI, Murati gained a reputation for her outspoken views on the potential and challenges of AI. She once claimed in an interview that OpenAI’s technology could achieve “Ph.D.-level” intelligence and, at The Wall Street Journal’s WSJ Tech Live Conference, suggested that some creative jobs might be replaced by AI because they “shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

“Some creative jobs maybe will go away, but maybe they shouldn’t have been there in the first place if the content that comes out of it is not very high quality,” she stated, adding that she believes AI can expand human intelligence, creativity, and imagination when used as a tool for education and creative endeavors.

OpenAI’s Shifting Landscape

Murati’s departure comes at a time of significant change for OpenAI. The company is reportedly in the midst of a funding round that could value it at over $150 billion, with potential investments from Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple, and Thrive Capital. This round, potentially as large as $6.5 billion, is seen as crucial for OpenAI, which has spent billions on model training and operational costs. According to reports, training the GPT-4 model alone cost over $100 million, and maintaining the popular ChatGPT chatbot has been estimated to cost around $700,000 a day.

Murati’s exit follows several high-profile departures, including ex-chief scientist Ilya Sutskever and former safety leader Jan Leike, who left in May, and co-founder John Schulman, who recently joined rival Anthropic. Additionally, OpenAI president Greg Brockman is currently on extended leave through the end of the year.

What’s Next for Mira Murati?

While Murati has not yet disclosed her next steps, she has expressed a desire to explore new opportunities. “I am excited to see where this journey takes me next,” she shared in her farewell post. As one of the leading figures in AI innovation, her next move will undoubtedly be watched closely by the tech community.