Former OpenAI employee is setting up shop with new AI company

Co-founder and former chief scientist at OpenAI Ilya Sutskever is starting a new AI company called Safe Superintelligence Inc., or SSI Inc. for short.

In a statement on social media Sutskever calls building safe superintelligence ‘the most important technical problem of our time’. Therefore he started a new company with only one goal and product in mind: a safe superintelligence.

“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,” he states.

According to Sutskever, safety is the most important pillar of the new company. That means SSI Inc. will not be releasing new products as long as it’s not a hundred percent safe.

How he wants to accomplish that? By ‘scaling in peace’ as he calls it.

“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 statement says.

SSI Inc. has offices in both Palo Alto and Tel Aviv, where most of the talent on artificial intelligence is located. Sutskever is currently looking for passionate engineers and scientists to be part of the new company.

Daniel Gross and Daniel Levy will join forces

Ilya Sutskever was one of the co-founders of OpenAI and chief scientist for years. According to Reuters, he played a key role in the firing and rehiring of OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman.

After Altman’s return, Sutskever decided to leave the company. Last May, he hinted that he was working on a new project and would share details ‘in due time’. What we didn’t know at the time he was talking about SSI Inc.

Sutskever is joined by Daniel Gross and Daniel Levy to create a ‘Super Intelligence’. Daniel Gross is an American entrepreneur and investor and used to work as a director at Apple. Like Sutskever, Daniel Levy used to work at OpenAI as an engineer.