OpenAI Co-founder Durk Kingma Joins rival startup Anthropic

Durk Kingma, who helped setup OpenAI in 2015 alongside Elon Musk and current CEO Sam Altman, has shared in a long post in the X that he is joining Anthropic in order to develop powerful AI systems responsibly.

Just a week after OpenAI announced it was changing to a for-profit company, one of the co-founders of OpenAI has joined a major rival. This exit is announced as the time when many people have already started leaving the artificial intelligence firm.

“Anthropic’s approach to AI development resonates significantly with my own beliefs; looking forward to contributing to Anthropic’s mission of developing powerful AI systems responsibly,” he wrote in a post to X.

The research scientist’s work on generative AI models were integral to the development of OpenAI’s Dall-E image generator and popular chatbot ChatGPT, though it is not clear what his specific role will be at Anthropic.

“Can’t wait to work with their talented team, including a number of great ex-colleagues from OpenAI and Google, and tackle the challenges ahead!,” he posted further.

Mr. Kingma’s decision comes less than a month after another OpenAI co-founder, John Schulman, announced he would join Anthropic. Schulman plans to focus on the safe and ethical development of AI.

“I’ve made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI. This choice stems from my desire to deepen my focus on AI alignment, and to start a new chapter of my career where I can return to hands-on technical work,” he wrote in a lengthy post to X.

The departures mean that current chief executive Sam Altman and computer scientist Wojciech Zaremba are the only remaining OpenAI co-founders who still work at the company.