LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman Leaves OpenAI's Board Over Conflicts of Interest

Reid Hoffman remains on the board of Microsoft, itself a major partner to and investor in OpenAI.

By Reuters | Updated: 4 March 2023 10:57 IST

LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman Leaves OpenAI's Board Over Conflicts of Interest

Photo Credit: Reuters

Multiple companies are aiming to reshape content production as well as entire industries through AI

Highlights

Reid Hoffman backs more artificial intelligence companies
Hoffman also co-founded Inflection AI
He has invested in and advised the OpenAI since its 2015 founding

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman is leaving OpenAI's board to avoid conflicts of interest as he backs more artificial intelligence companies, he said in an online post.

Hoffman, who has invested in and advised the startup since its 2015 founding, said his venture capital firm Greylock is funding companies such as presentation generator Tome, which are paying for tools from OpenAI, the creator of chatbot sensation ChatGPT. Hoffman also co-founded Inflection AI, one of the highest profile startups working on technology similar to OpenAI's.

"By stepping off the board, I can proactively put to rest any downstream potential issues for both OpenAI and all Greylock portfolio companies I've backed," he said, noting OpenAI has avoided conflicts to date.

[Sponsored] Samsung Galaxy S24: The Ultimate Camera Phone With Smarter On-Device AI

Hoffman's departure underscores competition among an increasing number companies aiming to reshape content production as well as entire industries through AI.

At the same time, Hoffman said he remained OpenAI's "ally" and wanted to work toward "elevating humanity" through technology including cross-industry partnerships if desired.

Sam Altman, OpenAI's chief executive, said in a Twitter post responding to Hoffman that he looks forward "to much more collaboration in the future!"

ChatGPT Can Be Integrated in Apps, Available for Paid Access for Businesses

Hoffman remains on the board of Microsoft, itself a major partner to and investor in OpenAI.

Meanwhile, OpenAI, in its latest update, has made ChatGPT tool available to companies to incorporate into their own apps as it seeks commercial uses for the wildly popular chatbot.

The company is now offering paid access for businesses and developers who want to use the software's ability to answer questions and generate text in their own applications and products. Customers will be able to hook their apps into ChatGPT's application programming interface, giving them the same version of the GPT 3.5 model that OpenAI itself uses at a cost 10 times lower than OpenAI's existing models.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

From smartphones with rollable displays or liquid cooling, to compact AR glasses and handsets that can be repaired easily by their owners, we discuss the best devices we've seen at MWC 2023 on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.