LISBON, PORTUGAL – NOVEMBER 07: LISBON, PORTUGAL – NOVEMBER 07: Emmett Shear, Twitch, on the ContentMakers 1 Stage stage during day two of Web Summit 2018 at Altice Arena on November 7, 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal. In 2018, more than 70,000 attendees from more than 170 countries will fly to Lisbon for the Web Summit, featuring more than 1,500 startups, 1,200 speakers and 2,600 international journalists. (Photo by Eoin Noonan/Web Summit via Getty Images)
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It’s been just a few days since OpenAI’s former CEO Sam Altman was ousted in a shock move and replaced temporarily by Chief Technology Officer Mira Muratti, who was serving as the firm’s interim chief executive . Now, a new replacement has been named for OpenAI’s interim CEO.
After a weekend of rumors and speculation, Emmett Shear – former co-founder and CEO of Twitch – Confirmed that he will take over the top post Possibly the most high-profile AI company in the world. In a post on
“After consulting with my family and thinking about it for a few hours, I accepted it,” Shearer said in the X-Post. This comes after Altman, who led OpenAI through the development of the hugely popular generative artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, was fired by the OpenAI board.
The reasons behind his departure are unclear, but some insiders expressed concerns that Altman was not a good fit for the company. For example, he is involved in another company, eyeball-scanning tech company WorldCoin, and there were concerns that this might have served as a distraction.
Who is Emmett Shear?
Shire is a big name in Silicon Valley — but to most people, she’s unknown.
Shear took Twitch — the livestreaming site he co-founded with Justin Kahn, Michael Seibel, and Kyle Vogt in 2007 — from basically broadcasting Kahn’s life 24/7 to a worldwide phenomenon.
Twitch was acquired Amazon for $1 billion in 2014 and Shear stepped down as CEO of Twitch earlier this year.
During his time at the company, he faced tension from streamers who believed the platform was not protecting their interests. It found itself locked in a tense battle with rival YouTube for talent, with the latter luring many high-profile personalities away from Twitch with lucrative exclusive broadcast deals.
Following Shear’s departure from the streaming site, he became a partner at the startup accelerator, Y Combinator. Altman was formerly the president of Y Combinator.
Before Shear started Twitch, he was the co-founder of Kiko Calendar, a calendar app he worked on through the 2005 Y Combinator program.
In his post on X on Monday, Shear explained why he took the OpenAI job.
“I recently resigned from my role as CEO of Twitch due to the birth of my 9-month-old son,” Shear said in the post early Monday.
“Spending time with them has been every bit as rewarding as I imagined, and I’m happily avoiding full-time employment.”
“I took this job because I believe OpenAI is one of the most important companies currently in existence. When the board shared the position and asked me to take on the role, I did not take the decision lightly. Ultimately I felt it was my duty to help if I could,” he added.
why it matters
Shear’s rapid promotion to CEO of OpenAI has put him in charge of one of the most important companies in the AI world today.
OpenAI is best known for its popular generative AI chatbot, ChatGPT.
The powerful technology behind that chatbot is called large language models, or LLMs. It is an AI model that is capable of processing and generating human language based on training from vast amounts of data.
As head of OpenAI, Shear will likely face pressure from regulators who are heavily scrutinizing AI model companies given the risks the technology poses due to misinformation and potential displacement of jobs.
Earlier this month, the UK held an important summit on AI security, bringing together leading foundational AI companies to discuss some of the most pressing issues in the field.
Particularly high on the list of discussion areas for world leaders was the “existential risk” that AI poses to humans.
Read more CNBC reporting on OpenAI
Altman himself has warned of this Despite being at the helm of a company that was working on rapidly advancing technology, AI threatened to wipe out humanity.
Notably, Shearer, like other tech leaders including Altman and Elon Musk, has made several comments about the potential for AI to wipe out humanity.
On “The Logan Bartlett Show,” a podcast hosted by Redpoint Ventures general partner Logan Bartlett, Shear said he thinks there is a “5 to 50” chance that AI could wipe out all human life today.
Furthermore, Shear also said that the possibility of AI malfunctioning in the future “should make you shit your pants.”
He said that potentially sentient artificial intelligence known as artificial general intelligence or AGI could result not only in the eradication of humanity, but also in “the potential destruction of all value in the life chain” and “destroying the universe.” Could also be “Wala Bomb”.
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Correction: Shear stepped down as CEO of Twitch earlier this year. The time was incorrectly stated in the earlier version.
Clarification: The headline of this story has been modified to clarify that Shear has been named interim CEO of OpenAI.
