Former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever launches new AI company

Ilya Sutskever, one of the co-founders of OpenAI, has started a new company, Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), just a month after leaving OpenAI.

Sutskever, OpenAI’s longtime chief scientist, founded SSI with former YC partner Daniel Gross and former OpenAI engineer Daniel Levy.

At OpenAI, Sutskever was integral to the company’s efforts to improve AI safety with the rise of “super intelligent” AI systems, an area he worked on closely with John Leakey. Yet both Sutskever and then Leakey dramatically left the company in May after disagreements with leadership at OpenAI over their approach to AI safety. Leakey now leads a team at Anthropic.

Sutskever has long been focused on the complex aspects of AI safety. In a blog post published in 2023, he (writing with Leakey) predicted that AI more intelligent than humans could appear within this decade – and when it does, it won’t necessarily be benevolent, so research into ways to control and restrict it will be essential.

The tweet reads, “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 united in achieving SSI. We view security and capabilities together as technical problems to be solved through revolutionary engineering and scientific breakthroughs.”

“We plan to advance our capabilities as rapidly as possible, while also ensuring that our security is always at the forefront. This way, we can expand in peace. Our sole focus is not to be distracted by management overhead or product cycles, and our business model means that security, protection and progress are all insulated from short-term commercial pressures.”

SSI has offices in Palo Alto and Tel Aviv, where it is currently recruiting technical talent.