Anthropic has hired yet another of OpenAI's founders, this time bringing on Durk Kingma in an unspecified role.

This comes after fellow OpenAI co-founder John Schulman left the super lab in August to join Anthropic to "return to hands-on technical work."

Kingma revealed his news in a post on X on Tuesday, saying he was excited to join Anthropic because he believes in its approach to developing AI – a frequent refrain among the growing throng of OpenAI heavyweights who have left for the competition.

Anthropic was formed in 2021 by ex-OpenAI and Google staff, among others, and strives to provide artificial intelligence in a safe and comfy manner. Like OpenAI, Anthropic offers a family of models, and Claude is its answer to ChatGPT.

"[I'm] looking forward to contributing to Anthropic's mission of developing powerful AI systems responsibly," Kingma posted. "Can't wait to work with their talented team, including a number of great ex-colleagues from OpenAI and Google."

Only two of OpenAI's 11 founders are still associated with the Microsoft-backed AI house. Kingma left his role as boss of OpenAI's algorithms team in 2018 after just two years under CEO Sam Altman's direction – joining Google as a research scientist on Google Brain, which was folded into DeepMind in 2023.

AI expert Gary Marcus, a long-time critic of OpenAI, has described the many senior leadership departures as a "slow-motion train wreck" at a business that's irrationally overvalued.

OpenAI just today raised $6.6 billion, valuing it at $157 billion, with Thrive Capital, Microsoft, Nvidia, SoftBank, and others chipping in.

"Investors shouldn't be pouring more money at higher valuations, they should be asking what is going on," Marcus observed last week in the wake of a new round of OpenAI departures, which included CTO Mira Murati.

Kingma, who is based in the Netherlands, will largely work remotely for Anthropic. We asked Kingma for comment. Anthropic declined to elaborate on the news, only pointing us to Kingma's post on X.

Something about rats and ships

Kingma's departure from OpenAI and arrival at Anthropic was not immediate, though his reasons for choosing his new employer echo those of other founders who left: Concerns that Altman and his team weren't being as open as the company name suggests.

Dario Amodei, who joined OpenAI after its founding to lead development of GPT-2 and GPT-3, and then left to co-create Anthropic, told Fortune last year he departed OpenAI because it was focused purely on making more powerful models without a proper focus on safety.

"You don't tell the models what their values are just by pouring more compute into them," Amodei argued, noting a number of OpenAI employees agreed with him on the need to put safety on equal footing with growing performance.

"We really trusted each other and wanted to work together," Amodei added, "so we went off and started our own company with that idea in mind."

Amodei and his sister, Daniela – who served as VP of safety and policy at OpenAI before leaving – co-founded San Francisco-based Anthropic with Benjamin Mann; former El Reg reporter Jack Clark; and Jared Kaplan, who each worked for OpenAI in various roles.

Anthropic has also hired Jan Leike, OpenAI's former head of alignment, who departed OpenAI in May.

Leike cited disagreements with OpenAI leadership as the reason for his departure, writing that "safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products" at the hype-loving AI biz in recent years.

Industry talk now suggests that OpenAI is considering restructuring itself as a for-profit business with Altman at the helm – a possibility that's unlikely to ease concerns about his leadership qualities.

We've asked OpenAI for comment. ®

https://www.theregister.com//2024/10/02/anthropic_hires_openai_founder_durk_kingma/