Who is Mira Murati, the Interim CEO of ChatGPT Maker OpenAI?
In a surprising turn of events on Friday, November 17, 2023, Sam Altman, the prominent CEO of OpenAI, the company responsible for ChatGPT, was abruptly terminated during a Google Meet session. Despite the unexpected move, neither Altman nor the Board provided any explicit reasons for the sudden ouster.
Stepping into the interim CEO role at the helm of the burgeoning artificial intelligence industry's leading company is Mira Murati, a 35-year-old executive with a remarkable background. Born in Albania in 1988, Murati ventured to Canada at the age of 16 to pursue her education at Pearson College UWC.
Armed with a degree in mechanical engineering from Dartmouth College, Murati embarked on a diverse professional journey. Her early career included internships at Goldman Sachs and Zodiac Aerospace, a prominent French aerospace group. Murati later spent three years at Tesla, where she served as a senior product manager for the Model X, overseeing the development of early versions of Autopilot, the automaker’s AI-driven driver-assistance software.
In 2016, Murati joined Leap Motion, a startup focused on hand- and finger-tracking motion sensors for PCs, as VP of product and engineering. In an interview with Fast Company, she expressed her vision of making computer interaction "as intuitive as playing with a ball," but the technology, reliant on a VR headset, proved ahead of its time.
Transitioning to OpenAI in 2018 as VP of applied AI and Partnerships, Murati quickly climbed the ranks, becoming CTO in 2022. In this role, she spearheaded the development of ChatGPT, the viral AI-powered chatbot, as well as other groundbreaking projects like the text-to-image AI DALL-E and the code-generating system Codex, which powers GitHub’s Copilot product.
OpenAI credits Murati with playing a "critical role" in the company's evolution from a small startup to a leader in artificial intelligence. ChatGPT, a project Murati affectionately refers to as her "child" in a Time Magazine interview, has come under increasing scrutiny as the field of artificial intelligence undergoes rapid growth, with Congress contemplating regulation for this burgeoning industry.
In a February interview with Time Magazine, where she earned a spot on the 2023 Time100 Next list, Murati voiced concerns about the potential risks associated with artificial intelligence. As OpenAI navigates this critical juncture under her leadership, all eyes are on Mira Murati and the future trajectory of this influential AI powerhouse.
