A month after parting ways with OpenAI over disagreements about the safety of its products, Dr. Ilya Sutskever has unveiled a new venture called Safe Superintelligence (SSI). As the name implies, this initiative is dedicated to developing "safe superintelligence." The company announced in an official statement that SSI "will be our sole focus."
One of the two SSI offices will be located in Tel Aviv. The second office is in Palo Alto, California.
Sutskever, who co-founded OpenAI and served as its chief scientist, announced his departure in May, a mere six months after spearheading an unsuccessful attempt to remove CEO Sam Altman. Within hours of his announcement, another senior executive, Jan Leike, also resigned. Two days later, OpenAI disclosed that the team tasked with addressing AI risks had been disbanded, a team that was both established and led by Sutskever and Leike. Reports at the time suggested that OpenAI’s management had placed significant obstacles in the path of the team’s effective operation before its dissolution.
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OpenAI Chief Scientist Dr. Ilya Sutskever and CEO Sam Altman at Tel Aviv University a year ago
(Photo: Avigail Uzi)
All of which paved the way for Sutskever to unveil his latest venture, Safe Superintelligence (SSI), an AI startup dedicated to pioneering advancements with a strong emphasis on safety. "Superintelligence is within reach," announced the company on its official X account. "Creating safe superintelligence is the most critical technical challenge of our era. We've established the world's first SSI lab with a singular focus: developing safe superintelligence."
The company added: "SSI is our mission, our name, and our entire product roadmap, because it is our sole focus. Our team, investors, and business model are all aligned to achieve SSI. We approach safety and capabilities in tandem, as technical problems to be solved through revolutionary engineering and scientific breakthroughs. We plan to advance capabilities as fast as possible while making sure our safety always remains ahead. This way, we can scale in peace. Our singular focus means no distraction by management overhead or product cycles, and our business model means safety, security, and progress are all insulated from short-term commercial pressures."
The company will have two centers of activity: one in Palo Alto, and the other in Tel Aviv. "We are an American company with offices in Palo Alto and Tel Aviv, where we have deep roots and the ability to recruit top technical talent," according to the company statement.
The company added that it is recruiting for its offices in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv. "We are assembling a lean, crack team of the world’s best engineers and researchers dedicated to focusing on SSI and nothing else. If that’s you, we offer an opportunity to do your life’s work and help solve the most important technical challenge of our age. Now is the time. Join us," the company said in a recruitment pitch.
The founders of SSI have deep ties to Israel. Sutskever, 37, is an Israeli born in the USSR who immigrated to Jerusalem at the age of 5. He began his academic studies at the Open University. However, he completed all his academic degrees at the University of Toronto, where he earned a doctorate in machine learning under the guidance of Professor Geoffrey Hinton, one of the early pioneers in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).
The other two founders of SSI are Daniel Levy and Daniel Gross. Levy, who has a bachelor's degree from Ecole Polytechnique in France and a doctorate in computer science from Stanford in California, was until recently a senior developer at OpenAI. Before that he worked as an intern at Microsoft, Meta and Google. Gross, 32, born in Jerusalem, previously led Apple's AI efforts, was a partner in the startup accelerator Y Combinator and invested in or was involved in companies such as Uber, GitHub and perplexity.ai. In November, he was chosen by Time magazine for its list of the 100 most influential people in the field of artificial intelligence.