Mira Murati, former CTO of OpenAI, launches Thinking Machines Lab to democratize artificial intelligence development and bridge the gap between AI advancements and public understanding.
Mira Murati Launches Thinking Machines Lab to Make AI More Accessible
Mira Murati has launched Thinking Machines Lab, a public benefit corporation aimed at making artificial intelligence (AI) more accessible. As the former chief technology officer of OpenAI, Murati left her position in September 2023 to create space for her own exploration.
Mira Murati is a renowned computer scientist and researcher specializing in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.
She serves as the Chief Technology Officer at Coursera, an online education platform.
Murati's work focuses on developing intelligent systems that can learn from data and improve over time.
Her research has been published in top-tier conferences and journals, including the International Conference on Machine Learning and the Journal of Machine Learning Research.
The Gap Between AI and Public Understanding
Murati believes that there is a significant gap between rapidly advancing AI technologies and the general public’s understanding of these advancements. Even experts in the field often lack a clear grasp of AI’s capabilities and limitations. To address this issue, Thinking Machines Lab plans to develop top-notch AI models with accessibility as a primary consideration.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized various industries, but its benefits are not equally accessible to everyone.
AI accessibility refers to the design and development of AI systems that are inclusive and usable by people with disabilities.
According to a report, 15% of the global population lives with some form of disability.
To ensure equal access, organizations must implement accessible AI features such as voice commands, screen readers, and high contrast modes.
By doing so, they can unlock the full potential of AI for all users.
Filling the Gap Through Transparency
The lab aims to bridge the gap by sharing its work through technical notes, papers, and open-source code. This approach is rooted in Murati‘s conviction that we are still in the early stages of AI development, and there is ample room for innovation and competition. The emergence of DeepSeek, a platform claiming to build advanced reasoning models at a lower cost, supports this perspective.
High-End Language Models and AGI
Thinking Machines Lab will focus on developing large language models that can unlock transformative applications and benefits, such as enabling novel scientific discoveries and engineering breakthroughs. Although the term ‘Artificial General Intelligence’ (AGI) is not explicitly mentioned, the lab’s goal is to upscale its models’ capabilities to the highest level possible.
Large language models are a type of artificial intelligence that uses complex algorithms to process and generate human-like language.
These models have been trained on vast amounts of text data, allowing them to learn patterns and relationships between words.
They can be used for tasks such as language translation, text summarization, and chatbot development.
According to a report by Gartner, the market for large language models is expected to grow by 50% annually until 2025.
The largest players in this space include Meta AI's LLaMA and Google's BERT.
Attracting Top Talent
Murati‘s vision has attracted a team of renowned researchers and scientists, many of whom have previously worked at OpenAI. The lab’s CTO is Barret Zoph, a former VP of research at OpenAI, while its chief scientist will be John Schulman, a key inventor of ChatGPT who left Anthropic last summer.
Collaboration Between Humans and AI
Thinking Machines Lab indicates that its products will not be copycats of existing models like ChatGPT or Claude. Instead, the lab aims to develop AI models that optimize collaboration between humans and AI, which Murati sees as the current bottleneck in the field. This approach is reminiscent of American inventor ‘Danny Hillis’ vision for a partnership between people and machines, first proposed over 30 years ago.
The team has already started working on various projects, and Thinking Machines Lab is confident that it will raise the necessary funding to support its ambitious goals. With Murati at the helm, the lab is poised to make significant contributions to the field of AI and bridge the gap between technological advancements and public understanding.
