Technology
OpenAI Research Director Departs Following CTO Mira Murati’s Departure
OpenAI Research Director Bob McGrew and Research Vice President Barrett Zoph left the corporate hours after OpenAI CTO Mira Murati announced her departure.
CEO Sam Altman revealed two recent resignations in fasting on Wednesday evening, with plans for a leadership change.
“Mira, Bob and Barrett made these decisions independently and amicably,” he said, “but the timing of Mira’s decision was such that it made sense to do it all at once so that we could work together to ensure a smooth transition to the next generation of leadership.”
Vice President of Research Mark Chen can be promoted to the brand new senior vp of research at OpenAI, leading the corporate’s research division in partnership with Jakub Pachocki as chief scientist, Altman said.
Matt Knight, previously head of security, can be OpenAI’s chief information security officer. And Chief Product Officer Kevin Weil and Vice President of Engineering Srinivas Narayanan will proceed to guide OpenAI’s applications team, which is accountable for delivering the corporate’s technology to each enterprise and consumer customers.
Josh Achiam, a research scientist, will tackle a brand new role as head of mission alignment. Altman says he’ll “work across the company to make sure all the pieces and culture are right to get to a place where the mission is successful.”
“Mark, Jacob, Kevin, Srinivas, Matt, and Josh will report to me,” Altman added. “For the past year or more, I’ve spent most of my time on the nontechnical parts of our organization; now I’m looking forward to spending most of my time on the technical and product parts of the company.”
In his post, Altman tried to guarantee staff — and outsiders — that leadership changes are simply the conventional course of events.
“Changes in leadership are a natural part of businesses, especially those that grow so quickly and are so demanding,” he said. “I certainly won’t pretend it’s natural that this happened so suddenly, but we’re not a normal company, and I think the reasons Mira explained to me (there’s never a good time, anything that wasn’t sudden would leak, and she wanted to do it while OpenAI was still in growth mode) make sense.”
McGrew simply said that “it was time for him to take a break.”
“The last eight years of OpenAI have been a journey of humility and awe for me,” he added in his speech. fasting on X. “The small nonprofit I joined in January 2017 has grown into the most important research and implementation company in the world… I have great confidence in (OpenAI)’s leadership.”
McGrew joined OpenAI in 2017 as a member of the technical team and was promoted to vp of research in 2018 before becoming director of research.
Zoph, who joined OpenAI in 2022, said in fasting that “(it) seemed like a natural moment” to “explore new opportunities beyond OpenAI.”
Zoph led the post-training team tasked with training and refining OpenAI models before deploying them in products corresponding to ChatGPT and the OpenAI API, in addition to other internal OpenAI research teams.
“It’s a personal decision based on how I want to develop the next phase of my career,” he continued.
OpenAI’s departing executives can publicly say the splits are amicable. But their moves come on the heels of reports that OpenAI is on the verge of transitioning from a nonprofit to a for-profit entity, with Altman set to receive a 7% stake in OpenAI.
With a brand new round of financing set to shut soon, valuing the corporate at $150 billion, disagreements over the corporate’s direction could prove to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
We’ll actually learn more details tomorrow when OpenAI holds a staff meeting.
Technology
Bluesky claims that 1 million people have registered on the platform in the last 24 hours
Bluesky said this on Thursday night Over 1 million people have registered on the platform over the last 24 hours, making this one among the busiest days for the company. This also meant that the social network crossed the overall mark of 16 million users.
The platform’s announcement comes hours after Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said Threads had seen greater than 15 million registrations in November. He added that over the last three months, the Meta-owned platform has recorded 1 million registrations per day.
Bluesky also had teething problems Thursday as some users were unable to make use of services because one among the company’s ISPs had a cable issue that combined with other network problems, in accordance with Bluesky developer.
Over the past few months, the decentralized social network has seen a gradual influx of users amid various events reminiscent of the X ban in Brazil, moderation issues at Threads, and the recent US election results. After the announcement of the results of the US presidential election, over a million recent people registered on the platform inside per week, the company said on Tuesday.
At the time of writing, a surge in Bluesky sign-ups over the past 24 hours has put the app at the top of the list of free apps in the US App Store, followed by ChatGPT and Threads.
Bluesky might be smaller than Threads, which has over 275 million energetic users, and Elon Musk’s X. However, the platform’s CEO Jay Graber published earlier this week that Bluesky has more involvement than X.
(*1*) she said separate post.
Last month, Bluesky said it had raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Blockchain Capital with participation from Alumni Ventures, True Ventures, SevenX, Darkmode’s Amir Shevat and Kubernetes co-founder Joe Beda. On the product front, the company said it plans to launch subscriptions.
Technology
Black creative technologists showcase films and art concepts at Torrents BPMplus shows
Black public media absorbing The BPMplus program will include two presentations of creative technological productions at “Torrents: New Links to Black Futures” on Saturday, November 16.
Headquartered in Harlem, New York, Black Public Media is a national nonprofit media arts organization supports the event and distribution of black filmtelevision and immersive projects from Black creators who use technology to create content related to the worldwide Black experience.
On Saturday at 12:00, filmmakers and artists will meet at Songbyrd Music House to speak in regards to the art of making artificial intelligence, augmented reality, projections and video projects. The 2024 event’s featured artists, moderated by BPM Emerging Media Director Lisa Osborne, will engage with attendees by sharing their workflow and creative processes, revealing the intentions behind their designs, delving into concept art, and showcasing clips of accomplished work.
Launched in 2018, the BPMplus project offers manufacturers and technologists access to grants, scholarships, workshops, demonstrations and networking opportunities as they create projects using augmented reality, motion capture, artificial intelligence and other technologies.
“As artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies become more embedded in our daily lives, it is important that access to these tools is available to everyone in the liminal or pre-commercial phase,” Osbourne said in a press release.
Creators even have access to artist residency programs and the national PitchBLACK Immersive forum.
CulturalDC once more welcomed BPMplus for its annual presentation on Torrents as an interdisciplinary series celebrates the progressive way forward for visual artstechnology, music, film and performance.
“For decades, technology training, grants and other opportunities have been funneled into the hands of a few, essentially injecting biases that existed in old or traditional media into new storytelling tools long before their mass adoption,” Osbourne said. “Our BPMplus programs strive to counter this larger trend in the worlds of technology, film, art and philanthropy by giving our immersive filmmakers and artists a seat at the table to ensure a future where all communities are represented.”
“Torrents: New Links to Black Futures” will run from November 14 to 17. BPMplus Art & Tech Showcase I starts at noon on the last day; Showcase II will happen at 2:00 PM EST. There will likely be a net mixer with a money bar from 3:30-4:30 p.m
Registration is accessible we recommend collaborating free events.
Technology
Influur wants to stand out from other influencer marketplaces by promising on-time payouts
as influential economy is growing, startups like PassionFroot, Agentio and One Impression, together with social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, are attempting to construct marketplaces to connect brands with creators.
A startup based in Miami Influencefocuses on two unique features of its platform: quick response from creators and financial tools ensuring timely payment.
The company is developing a set of tools for brands to higher track campaigns. Additionally, it’s considering introducing latest financial products for creators, including loans, debit cards and bank cards.
To support these efforts, Influur has raised $10 million in Series A financing from Point72 Ventures and HTwenty Capital, bringing its total funding to over $15 million. Business angels include Sofia Vergara and Thalia.
Ishan Sinha, partner at Point72, said the platform helps creators change into higher entrepreneurs.
“Creators are good at creating content. However, they may not be business-savvy entrepreneurs. So by having a place for their money to live, they can get paid quickly and their analysis is powerful,” he said.
Influur was founded in 2021 by 4 Latina founders: CEO Alessandra Angelini, who worked as a producer at CNN before founding the corporate; chief influencer Fefi Oliveira, who has worked within the entertainment industry with corporations akin to Nickelodeon and Telemundo and has over 9 million followers on her social media accounts; chief operating officer Paula Coleman, who also worked at CNN as an associate producer; and sales director Valeria Angelini, who worked as a social media analyst at FedEx.
Before founding Influur, Angelini asked Oliveira, whom she met in college, why the creators didn’t respond to CNN’s attempts to contact her. Oliveira explained that influencers receive hundreds of messages on Instagram and email, making it difficult to manage all of them.
To solve this problem, Angelini got here up with an influencer marketing tool, similar to Google AdSense, to manage a brand’s spend on this space.
Market and community
Once joined, creators can connect all their social media accounts, view marketing pricing, and consider a listing of past brand collaborations. The startup’s founders noted that there are currently over 40,000 creators on the platform with various numbers of followers.
Creators can apply for open brand campaigns that meet their criteria. They also can go for a “gated partnership” where they receive the brand’s product in exchange for content. As for brands, they also can contact chosen creators individually for collaborations.
On the platform, creators can get suggestions and suggestions from other experienced creators and learn from them. To keep interactions relevant, the platform limits posts to creators with greater than 2,000 followers.
Angelini said many platforms list influencers based on online data, which frequently leads to low response rates. She mentioned that the influencer normally responds to a brand inquiry on Influur inside 24 hours.
Influur also offers a premium subscription for creators for $30 per thirty days, which provides them access to a one-click media kit with detailed information on pricing rates, past campaigns, social media and engagement metrics. They also get access to experiences where they will create content and exclusive webinars from popular creators.
According to Oliveira – a creator for years – certainly one of the principal problems is the pursuit of brands for a payment after ending work. To solve this problem, Influur asks brands to pay upfront, holds the cash in an escrow account, after which transfers it to the creator’s wallet once they ship all campaign products.
“Influencers often wait 60 to 120 days after publishing their final product to get paid. We solve this problem with our wallet and instant payments feature,” Oliveira said.
Creators can wait 30 days for withdrawal or withdraw the cash immediately with a 15% fee to Influur. Currently, the corporate supports withdrawals in several countries, including: within the USA, Mexico and Brazil. The startup mentioned that 20% of its creators paid this fee to get a fast payout.
In the longer term, the startup plans to launch a set of monetary tools for creators, akin to virtual accounts, short-term loans, credit and debit cards. “Influencers want Influur to become their bank. We are planning to launch a new financial product so that we are not only part of how influencers make money, but also part of how they save and spend money,” Angelini said.
Point72’s Sinha said that in his careful evaluation of the fund, he discovered that the founders care about financial stability and that the startup is constructing the fitting tools to achieve this.
Insights for brands
With the Series A raise, Influur is working to add insights to influencer campaigns together with financial tools. The company can be making a prediction engine that may allow corporations to predict the effectiveness of campaigns for a particular creator.
The company is expanding its team in 4 centers: San Francisco, Miami, Mexico and Argentina.
In addition to charging creators a 15% fast withdrawal fee and premium subscription, Influur also charges a service fee of 20-25% per transaction from brands. While the corporate had several profitable months last 12 months, it’ll take a while for Influur to generate a profit because it goals to change into money flow positive by 2026.
The startup believes it has an edge over other markets thanks to its financial tools, insights engine, and popular creator as co-founder.
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