Techmeme
November 19, 2023, 9:05 AM

Top News

The Verge:
Source: OpenAI's board had agreed to resign and let Sam Altman and Greg Brockman return, but has since waffled; Altman would want significant governance changes  —  The OpenAI board is in discussions with Sam Altman to return to CEO, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
More: The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Ars Technica, New York Times, Tom's Hardware, MarketWatch, Engadget, Business Insider, CoinGape, Disconnect, NewsBTC, CNN, Fox Business, Bloomberg, TechCrunch, London Evening Standard, Livemint, DeviceSecurity.io, Tuko.co.ke, Moneycontrol, Android Authority, Verdict, Marcus on AI, SlashGear, Cryptopolitan, Windows Central, Business Today, Washington Post, Cointelegraph, Neowin, Fortune, BBC, CNBC, Axios, The Information, Exponential View, Bloomberg, Fast Company, Financial Times, Gizchina, crypto.news, VentureBeat, Politico, Android Headlines, The Hill, TechCircle, DatacenterDynamics, Bitcoinist.com, and Computerworld
Erin Woo / The Information:
Sources: in a memo, OpenAI Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon told employees that the company is “optimistic” it can bring back Sam Altman and Greg Brockman  —  OpenAI is “optimistic” it can bring back Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and other key employees who departed in the wake …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Microsoft and Thrive are working to reinstate Sam Altman as OpenAI's CEO; Satya Nadella, blindsided by the board's decision, pledged to support Altman  —  - Board has considered resigning, hasn't made final decision  — Altman has been weighing new venture, but open to returning
Forbes:
Sources: OpenAI investors discussed reinstating Sam Altman by threatening OpenAI with mass researcher revolt, withholding Microsoft cloud credits, and a lawsuit  —  With the ousted OpenAI CEO actively discussing a new artificial intelligence venture, investors in his previous company are trying …
Kate Clark / The Information:
Source: Sam Altman was in discussions with semiconductor companies, including Arm, on the morning of November 17 about designing new chips that lower LLM costs  —  Sam Altman, the recently ousted CEO of OpenAI, has been telling investors that he is planning to launch a new artificial intelligence venture …
Axios:
OpenAI memo: Sam Altman's firing wasn't due to “malfeasance” or related to financial, business, safety, or security practices but a “breakdown in communication”  —  Team - after yesterday's announcement, which took us all by surprise, we have had multiple conversations …
Erin Woo / The Information:
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Kara Swisher / @karaswisher:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Kalley Huang / The Information:
Meta split up its Responsible AI team, moving most of its members to the generative AI team formed in February 2023, and the others to an AI infrastructure unit  —  Meta Platforms has split up a team responsible for understanding and preventing harms associated with the artificial intelligence …
Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
Sources: OpenAI has received only a fraction of Microsoft's $10B investment, a big portion of which is in cloud purchases, giving Microsoft significant leverage  —  Only a fraction of Microsoft's $10 billion investment in OpenAI has been wired to the startup, while a significant portion of the funding …
Kate Clark / The Information:
More: ForbesThreads: @timothybucksfX: @garymarcus, @garymarcus, @jon_victor_, and @aaronpholmesForums: r/OpenAI
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Will Douglas Heaven / MIT Technology Review:
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Nothing pulls its Sunbird-based iMessage app Nothing Chats from the Play Store after a researcher found messages are not E2EE, attachments are public, and more  —  Sunbird has been promising iMessage support on Android for about a year now, but the company has always seemed rather sketchy.

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