Mira Murati, the former Chief Technology Officer of OpenAI, has unveiled her new startup, which unsurprisingly centers on artificial intelligence.
Named Thinking Machine Labs, this newly launched venture aims to develop tools that cater to “the unique needs and goals” of users, creating AI systems that are “more comprehensible, adjustable, and generally proficient” than those currently on the market.
Murati is taking the lead at Thinking Machine Labs as its CEO. The company has enlisted OpenAI co-founder John Schulman as its chief scientist and Barret Zoph, the former chief research officer at OpenAI, as its CTO.
In a blog post shared with TechCrunch, Thinking Machine Labs highlighted that despite significant advancements in AI capabilities, there still exist “critical gaps.”
“The scientific community’s grasp of cutting-edge AI systems has not kept pace with rapidly evolving capabilities,” the blog stated. “The knowledge regarding how these systems are trained is confined to a handful of top-tier research labs, which limits public discussion on AI and people’s ability to utilize it effectively. Moreover, these systems are still challenging for individuals to tailor to their specific needs and values.”
The focus of Thinking Machine Labs will be on developing “multimodal” systems that “collaborate with humans,” according to their blog post, enabling them to adapt across a diverse range of human expertise and facilitate a wider array of applications.
“We are crafting models at the forefront of possibilities in fields like science and programming,” the blog detailed. “Ultimately, the most sophisticated models will unlock transformative applications and advantages, such as promoting novel scientific insights and engineering innovations.”
AI safety will also be a foundational principle in the work of Thinking Machine Labs. The company aims to promote safety by minimizing misuse of its released models, providing industry best practices, and supporting external alignment research through the sharing of code, datasets, and model specifications.
“We will prioritize understanding how our systems generate real-world value,” Thinking Machine Labs emphasized in its blog. “The most significant breakthroughs often stem from redefining our objectives, rather than merely optimizing existing metrics.”
Murati departed from OpenAI last October after a six-year tenure, expressing her intention to explore new opportunities.
Murati joined OpenAI in 2018, initially serving as the VP of applied AI and partnerships. After being promoted to CTO in 2022, she took charge of pivotal initiatives including ChatGPT, the text-to-image AI DALL-E, and the code-generating system Codex, which supported early iterations of GitHub’s Copilot programming assistant.
She also briefly served as OpenAI’s interim CEO following the sudden dismissal of CEO Sam Altman, who regarded her as a close collaborator.
For some time, there had been speculation regarding Murati’s recruitment of prominent AI researchers and team members for her venture. Notably, Thinking Machine Labs’ blog identifies 29 employees drawn from OpenAI, Character AI, Google DeepMind, among other leading tech companies.
Thinking Machine Labs is currently in search of machine learning scientists and engineers, as well as a research program manager, as detailed in their blog post.
At one stage, Murati was rumored to be negotiating to secure over $100 million in funding from unidentified venture capital firms.
Before her time with OpenAI, Murati worked at Tesla for three years as a senior product manager for the Model X, the company’s crossover SUV, during which Tesla introduced early iterations of its Autopilot, an AI-powered driver assistance software. Furthermore, she served as VP of product and engineering at Leap Motion, a startup focused on hand and finger-tracking technologies for PCs.
Murati joins a growing cadre of former OpenAI executives who are launching their own startups, including industry competitors such as Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence and Anthropic.
Compiled by Techarena.au.
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