Former OpenAI CTO Launches New AI Startup, Thinking Machines Lab
Introduction
Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati has announced her new startup, Thinking Machines Lab, which aims to make AI work for people’s unique needs and goals.
About Thinking Machines Lab
Thinking Machines Lab, which emerged from stealth today, is building tooling to create AI systems that are more widely understood, customizable, and generally capable than those currently available. The company is headed by Mira Murati as CEO, with John Schulman, OpenAI co-founder, as its chief scientist, and Barret Zoph, OpenAI’s former chief research officer, as CTO.
Mission and Goals
In a blog post, Thinking Machines Lab wrote that while AI capabilities have advanced dramatically, "key gaps" remain. The scientific community’s understanding of frontier AI systems lags behind rapidly advancing capabilities, and knowledge of how these systems are trained is concentrated within the top research labs, limiting both public discourse on AI and people’s abilities to use AI effectively. The company plans to build multimodal systems that work with people collaboratively, adapting to the full spectrum of human expertise and enabling a broader spectrum of applications.
AI Safety
AI safety will be another core tenet of Thinking Machines Lab’s work. The company plans to prevent misuse of the models it releases, share best practices and recipes for building safe AI systems with the industry, and support external research on alignment by sharing code, datasets, and model specifications.
Founding Team
Murati left OpenAI last October after six years at the company. She was previously VP of applied AI and partnerships and was promoted to CTO in 2022, leading the company’s work on ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Codex.
Funding and Hiring
Thinking Machines Lab is actively hiring machine learning scientists and engineers, as well as a research program manager. At one point, Murati was in talks to raise over $100 million from unnamed VC firms, although this was not confirmed.
Conclusion
Thinking Machines Lab is poised to make a significant impact in the AI landscape, with a strong founding team and a clear vision for making AI work for people’s unique needs and goals.
FAQs
Q: What is Thinking Machines Lab?
A: Thinking Machines Lab is a new AI startup founded by Mira Murati, former CTO of OpenAI.
Q: What is the mission of Thinking Machines Lab?
A: The company aims to make AI work for people’s unique needs and goals, building tooling to create AI systems that are more widely understood, customizable, and generally capable.
Q: What are the key goals of Thinking Machines Lab?
A: The company plans to build multimodal systems that work with people collaboratively, adapting to the full spectrum of human expertise and enabling a broader spectrum of applications.
