Jeffrey Hinton was awarded the Nobel Prize this week for his fundamental research in artificial neural networks, which has earned him the nickname “Godfather of AI.” In his Tuesday speech, Professor Hinton praised a student who rebelled against OpenAI's CEO, alluding to former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Satskeva.
“I was especially fortunate that I had a lot of very smart students who were much smarter than me and really made things work,” Hinton said. “They've continued to do great things. I'm especially proud of the fact that one of my students fired Sam Altman.”
Hinton is, of course, referring to OpenAI's board's vote to fire Altman in November 2023. Mr. Sutskever broke the news to Mr. Altman via video call, but later said he regretted it. Hinton appeared to celebrate the firing of OpenAI's CEO as a victory for what he often claims is the safety of AI. This victory was short-lived, however, as Altman now had more control over OpenAI than before and was able to quickly acquire a stake.