Startup founders informed CNBC that they or their clients are considering relying less on OpenAI's GPT family of big language models since the former CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, was removed from the company. Many of them reported seeing customers searching for alternatives.OpenAI staff have begun making attempts to assure customers that they remain fully dedicated to them despite the disruption.
When a companywide protest occurred at OpenAI after its CEO, Sam Altman, was removed, software startup CEO Arjun Bansal began receiving numerous phone calls from customers concerned with diminishing their reliance on OpenAI's GPT large language models. At Log10, Bansal's company, they create tools for third-party developers to build LLM-powered applications. He informed CNBC that customer's apprehension stemming from the OpenAI drama was a major factor for these requests. He stated, "People have contacted us on how to go through the process of fine-tuning different models or experimenting with other vendors without affecting how their code functions." An OpenAI spokesperson declined comments, but declared their services were correctly running after a three-hour malfunction. OpenAI's board of directors let go of Altman Friday for "not being fully truthful in his connections with them," according to their statement. Following a weekend of discussions that apparently resulted in Altman being reinstated at the company, ex-Twitch CEO Emmett Shear declared his appointment as interim head, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated Microsoft would hire Altman as well as fellow OpenAI partner, Greg Brockman, and their team.
More than 90% of OpenAI employees signed a letter to the company's board advocating their resignation or facing the possibility of staffers leaving. Shear is said to be contemplating his own departure if no evidence is provided to the board as to why Altman was dismissed. CNBC talked to several entrepreneurs, one of whom was Bansal, who commented that some are thinking of relying less on OpenAI's GPT family of LLMs since Altman was terminated. Additionally, an anonymous AI startup founder shared that they use several OpenAI application program interfaces and are now pondering the switch to Anthropic, a startup founded by ex-OpenAI associates and sponsored by Amazon and Google. This founder expressed their uneasiness upon Altman's removal and this was further intensified once Shear was elected as his successor. Shear, founder of Justin.tv which developed into Twitch, a streaming site for gaming, was acquired by Amazon for almost $1 billion four years ago. The source, a previous colleague of Shear's, has praised his intelligence and integrity.
Martin Kon, president and chief operating officer of Cohere, which also provides LLMs for use in applications, voiced his opinion Tuesday on the ongoing OpenAI saga. He mentioned that inquiries have risen since the scene began, expressing that "enterprises value certainty" and this current situation is making those looking to adopt AI take "a hard look at how much they value cloud flexibility and independence from big tech".Although OpenAI has sparked an increase in demand for LLMs, some startups are not able to meet the demand timely via their services. One founder CNBC spoke to said Anthropic has a waiting list, meaning that even though many are wanting to use its services, they may not get the chance to in the immediate future. Since then, OpenAI has decreased its fees, and while there are various LLMs available, such as open-source Meta's Llama 2 AI software, the GPT-4 model was noted to be the most competent at performing complex tasks and cost-efficient.
Despite these changes, the consensus among some remains that Shear may not be the right leader for a company at the forefront of the world's AI boom.
OpenAI is now in a defensive position due to its role in popularizing the use of AI software which can analyze written text and produce human-like copy. In an effort to assure customers of their commitment, Srinivas Narayanan, a vice president of OpenAI, declared, "We are still fully committed to our incredible community of developers and users". This was echoed by Steven Heidel, a member of OpenAI's technical staff in a post on Tuesday, wherein he stated, "The API team is here. The ChatGPT team is here. We are all still fully committed to our developers and users". To further assure customers, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella chimed in on Monday’s evening CNBC interview, saying, "Microsoft has all the capability to just do that on our own but we chose to explicitly partner with OpenAI and we want to continue to do so".
OpenAI's role in popularizing AI software has led the tech industry to credit the company, however they now find themselves defending their commitment to customers. In response, OpenAI employees are becoming vocal in assuring customers that they are still devoted to them.
Despite the recent turmoil, some customers of OpenAI have chosen to remain loyal. Michael Buckley, CEO of Be My Eyes, expressed that one of its products has been using the GPT-4V model, with support for analyzing images, since February. He further noted that he had received numerous calls from rival LLM companies, but chose to remain with OpenAI due to its performance and loyalty. Alexander Kvamme, co-founder and CEO of Pathlight, similarly stated that while his company uses multiple LLMs, OpenAI's GPT models are still superior for addressing complex tasks such as analyzing thousands of sales calls. He added that OpenAI's customer support team has done a good job of offering assistance. In addition, Brockman has announced that a voice-activated version of ChatGPT is now available to use for free. Despite the turmoil, there is still hope that OpenAI's services remain functioning without much disruption.
Comments