Who is Mira Murthy, head of OpenAI and influential women in Silicon Valley?
Meera Murthy made headlines when she took over as CEO of OpenAI in late November. It was a temporary position, but when she resolved a crisis, she emerged as a significant figure on the international scene.
And so Meera Murthy, Chief Technology Officer of OpenAI, became one of the prominent faces of the company. Among the most popular products of this company is ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence system that has revolutionized the world of technology.
The 34-year-old engineer from Albania was named one of the 100 most powerful women in the world this year by Fortune magazine and has become one of the most prominent faces in Silicon Valley.
However, Meera Murthy says that her job within the company is not easy.
In an interview with ‘The Daily Show’, he said, “There are so many questions that we struggle with every day.”
Although not many details are known about his hobbies and personal life, some clues have been given.
“I love reading and I love hiking,” he told the ‘Behind the Tech’ podcast. One of my favorite activities is to be surrounded by nature while hiking.
And in an interview with the famous Time magazine, he said that one of his favorite songs is Radiohead’s ‘Paranoid Android’. Among his favorite books is Rainer Maria Rilke’s collection of poems ‘Dino Elegies’ or Dino’s Obituary. And so among movies, Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ is his favorite.
Who is my idol? Where is she from, what is her career like and what does she think about artificial intelligence? Let us talk about it.
Albanian origin
Mira Murti was born in Albania in 1988, shortly before the fall of the communist regime. It is a small country in the Balkans and one of the poorest countries in Europe.
As the daughter of literature professors, her childhood was spent amidst the ‘transition from repressive communism to liberal capitalism’. Talking to ‘Behind the Tech’, he said, “When I was two years old, the dictatorial regime fell.” And overnight anarchy (disorder) spread.
He said during the program that he was interested in mathematics and physics since childhood.
“Albania used to be an incredibly isolated country like North Korea is today,” he said. And then there was not much entertainment or other activities besides books.
At the age of 16, he won a scholarship to study in Vancouver, Canada, where he completed his last two years of high school and then studied mechanical engineering at Dartmouth College.
Joining OpenAI
She soon moved to San Francisco where she worked at Elon Musk’s company Tesla, helping to develop the Model X and the artificial intelligence-based Autopilot tool.
After Tesla, he worked briefly at Leap Motion as vice president of products and engineering. This company makes sensors for virtual reality technology.
He then joined OpenAI in 2018 and was instrumental in developing the technology behind the company’s reputation generators, ChatGPT and Dal-e.
At the time, OpenAI was a non-profit research lab, but it soon became a commercial company.
He joined the company as vice president of applied artificial intelligence and was soon promoted to senior vice president of research, products and partnerships in 2020 and then to chief technology officer in 2022. Done.
According to the New York Times, Meera Murthy has managed the company’s relationship with Microsoft as a partner that has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI, and policy on intelligence development in Washington and Europe. contributed to the development.
Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella wrote in Time magazine that “he has demonstrated his technical expertise, business acumen and his ability to build teams with a sense of mission.”
“As a result, I’ve helped create some of the most exciting artificial intelligence applications, technology that we’ve never seen before,” he added.
‘Dangerous Skills’
In an interview with Fortune magazine, he said that one of the things that bothers him is “models who will have dangerous abilities.”
“This is the technology that will probably affect international politics the most of anything we’ve ever built.” And the closest case is definitely nuclear weapons.
He said that in such a case it will be very important to “how we can make a regulation that reduces this risk”.
When asked about what our future will look like after the emergence of artificial intelligence, he said that he sees both an optimistic side and an existential threat, and the possibilities of both. are
“I’m very optimistic that we can make sure everything goes well,” he said. But technology itself inherently has both possibilities, and it’s no different than any other tool we’ve created in the sense that it can be misused and have the potential to do really terrible things, even catastrophic things. Events are also likely to happen.’
“And what’s unique about it is that there’s an existential threat to it, and you know it’s basically about the end of human civilization,” he added. I think there is (only) a small chance of that happening. But even this small possibility is such that it is important to think about it.
In an interview with Time magazine, Meera Murthy also cited potential risks in the technological models that she and her team are developing.
“Technology shapes us and we shape it,” he said. There are many difficult problems to solve. How do you develop the model you want and how do you ensure that it will work according to human intent and ultimately serve humanity?’
“We don’t have an answer right now. Nor is the answer to who will have the decision-making power, who will control the new artificial intelligence system? Companies or governments?
“We’re a small group of people and we need a lot of input into this system and a lot more input that goes beyond technologies and certainly This includes regulators, governments and everyone else.’
‘It will change all kinds of industries’
In an interview with Wired magazine, Meera Murthy cited the problems that tools like ChatGPT or GPT4 can create in the work or copyright world.
“This is going to change all kinds of industries,” he said. People have compared it to the invention of electricity or the printing press. That’s why it’s important to integrate it into every level of society and start thinking about things like copyright laws, privacy, governance and regulation.”
New technologies are moving towards what is known as ‘Artificial General Intelligence’, a form of artificial intelligence that has the ability to perceive, learn and apply a wide range of knowledge.
When asked if OpenAI is the way to approach AGI, it can be approached from a different path, where tools are developed by iterating on tasks learned through human use. Murthy replied:
“I haven’t thought of a better way than iterative implementation to really get the constant adaptation and feedback that is generated in the technology to make it stronger.”
It is very important to do this while the risks are low. As we get closer to AGI, it is likely to be revived and as we get closer to it, our implementation strategy will change.