Microsoft to hire OpenAI's Sam Altman after sacking

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Monday (Nov 20) announced the hiring of OpenAI's Sam Altman and other members of his team, days after the co-founder of the venture behind ChatGPT was fired.

OpenAI's board sacked Altman on Friday, with United States media citing concerns that Altman was underestimating the dangers of its tech and leading the company away from its stated mission - claims his successor as CEO has denied.

Altman shot to fame with the launch of its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot last year, which ignited a race to advance AI research and development, as well as billions being invested in the sector.

Nadella wrote on X that Altman "will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team", along with OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and other colleagues.

"The mission continues," Altman posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Altman's sacking triggered several other high-profile departures from the company, as well as a reported push by major investors to bring him back.

Microsoft was among several high-profile OpenAI investors that were trying to restore Altman as CEO, according to US media.

But OpenAI stood by its decision in a memo sent to employees on Sunday night, saying "Sam's behaviour and lack of transparency ... undermined the board's ability to effectively supervise the company", The New York Times reported.

OpenAI appointed Emmett Shear, a former chief executive of Amazon's Twitch streaming service, as interim CEO, he said in a post on X on Monday.

Shear also denied reports that Altman had been fired over safety concerns regarding the use of AI technology.

"Today I got a call inviting me to consider a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: To become the interim CEO of @OpenAI. After consulting with my family and reflecting on it for just a few hours, I accepted," he wrote.

"Before I took the job, I checked on the reasoning behind the change. The board did not remove Sam over any specific disagreement on safety, their reasoning was completely different from that."

Microsoft CEO Nadella added in his post that "we look forward to getting to know Emmett Shear and OAI's new leadership team and working with them".

"We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap," he said.

Global tech titan Microsoft has invested more than US$10 billion in OpenAI and has rolled out the AI pioneer's tech in its own products.

The company is in fierce competition with others including Microsoft, Google and Meta, as well as start-ups like Anthropic and Stability AI, to develop its own AI models.

Generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT are trained on vast amounts of data to enable them to answer questions, even complex ones, in human-like language.

They are also used to generate and manipulate imagery.

But the tech has triggered warnings about the dangers of its misuse - from blackmailing people with "deepfake" images to the manipulation of images and harmful disinformation.