Former Twitch CEO Emmett Shea is launching a new AI startup, TechCrunch has learned.
The startup, called Stem AI, is currently in stealth mode. However, public documents show that the company was founded in June 2023 and filed for a trademark in August 2023. Mr. Shear is listed as CEO in the company's incorporation documents filed with the California Secretary of State earlier this year.
According to the trademark filing, Stem AI is developing software to create AI that “understands, collaborates with, and harmonizes with human behavior, human preferences, human biology, human morals, and human ethics.” The startup welcomed Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as an investor in August, according to Pitchbook.
One of Stem AI's co-founders is Adam Goldstein, best known as the founder of travel search and booking site Hipmunk. After selling Hipmunk to Concur in 2016, Goldstein became a visiting partner at Y Combinator and founded Astonishing Labs, an incubator that supports bioresearch.
Mr. Goldstein also spent a year as a visiting scientist at the Levin Institute at Tufts University.[developed] A new model of biological systems with a focus on cancer,” the LinkedIn page states.
When asked for comment, Shear didn't reveal much about Stem AI's plans. Goldstein did not immediately respond to email inquiries. Additionally, 16z head of marketing Margit Wennmachers and marketing partner Elizabeth Gunn did not immediately respond to TechCrunch's emails.
But in recent months, Mr. Shear has taken to social media to express his views on AI design, safety and regulation.
“Nearly all of the currently proposed [AI] Regulation is a bad idea,” Shear wrote in one post about X, and in another. [AI superintelligence] express a pessimistic view of [the] A serious lack of imagination about the speed of future advances in integrating digital intelligence, or the power of intelligence. ”
In a post earlier this month, Shear criticized most AI chatbots as “highly dissociative synchronic neurotics.”
“[Chatbots are] “They become manipulative for the same reasons people with borderline personality disorder are,” he said. “Because they don't have a stable sense of self or purpose within themselves, they feed off of yours and need you to be predictable.”
It is quite possible that Stem AI is developing a solution to address this “AI tuning” problem.
Shear, who spent nearly his entire career at Twitch after helping grow the platform from a start-up site called Justin.tv to the Amazon-owned behemoth it is today, believes powerful AI will one day have the ability to wipe out humanity. I have long expressed concerns that this might become the case. . Schier said on a technology podcast last June that he was concerned that AI would eventually acquire self-improvement abilities beyond human control.
“I'm in favor of building some kind of fire alarm. For example, it might not be an AI bigger than 'X,'” Shear said. “I think there are good options when it comes to international cooperation and things like the AI Test Ban Treaty.”
In November 2023, Schier was temporarily named interim CEO after several members of ChatGPT maker OpenAI's board ousted CEO Sam Altman. Mr. Shear once belonged to the same Y Combinator group as Mr. Altman and was a part-time partner at the company when Mr. Altman was president, but the board of directors did not provide evidence to support Mr. Altman's claims. He reportedly threatened to resign as CEO if the documents were not submitted. removed.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Shear, along with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, “helped pave the way” for Mr. Altman's return. Mr. Shear publicly criticized the handling of Altman's firing. Two days after Mr. Shear's appointment, an agreement was reached to reinstate Mr. Altman, and Mr. Shear resigned.
According to the filing, Mr. Xia earned about $3,720 during his short tenure at OpenAI.