Microsoft Invests in OpenAI, but Silicon Valley Wails

Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI for the research and development of AGI. This seemingly normal business behavior has attracted widespread attention and discussion due to a series of factors, such as the difficulty of AGI research and development, OpenAI's move from open source to commercialization, and Microsoft's hidden ambitions. Let's look at this matter from multiple angles and see what we can find in the diverse perspectives.

On July 22, Microsoft announced a $1 billion investment in OpenAI in order to build the next generation of supercomputers and platforms on the Azure platform to accelerate the arrival of AGI (artificial general intelligence).

With this investment, the two parties will also establish a deeper long-term cooperative relationship. Microsoft will become OpenAI's primary partner, and OpenAI will become a major customer of Azure and will gradually complete its technology deployment on Azure.

As soon as this news was released, it sparked heated discussions inside and outside the circle. What are the things worth thinking about behind this seemingly ordinary business event?

The vision of building AGI brought them together

According to reports, $1 billion will eventually go to OpenAI's for-profit subsidiary OpenAI LP According to the agreement, OpenAI can use the funds as needed. OpenAI plans to spend the huge sum of money within five years.

The official press release states, “Both parties in this collaboration will focus on building a computing platform in Azure to train and run advanced AI models, including Microsoft’s supercomputing hardware.

Implementing these plans in a safe and reliable manner was the key reason they chose each other. OpenAI  Will providePrecursor technologies for achieving AGI,andMicrosoftIt occupiesPartner's first position.

Sam Altman, co-founder of OpenAI, also emphasized in a recent interview that “OpenAI’s current goal is toDevelop universal AGI".

OpenAI, which is dedicated to building ethical AI, seems to be fully shifting its focus to building cutting-edge AI and moving closer to AGI. This coincides with Microsoft's desire to be at the forefront of technology.

It seems like cooperation, but in fact, each party is just taking what it needs?

There is no doubt that OpenAI willGet more resources,We will also be closer to the goal of achieving AGI. In addition to benefiting from this research funding, we may alsoFacilitate their commercialization path,And then raise more capital.

But this may also lead to them no longer being "open", for example, the progress of the project, specific details and open source code may not be easily open sourced.

For Microsoft, this wave of operations is alsoIt demonstrates their ambition to develop in the open source field.Previously, Microsoft acquired GitHub and launched a developer sponsorship program GitHub Sponsors,Now, through cooperation with OpenAI, it has become its "preferred" partner, further increasing its competitive advantage.

At last year's investor conference, Microsoft CEO Nadella said, "AI will be the key to the next technological shift, such as edge computing, cloud services, SaaS applications, and even infrastructure construction. AI plays an important role."

He also pointed out that to become a leader in this trend, it is not enough to just have the ability to use AI, but also to popularize it.Let every enterprise truly benefit from it.

Collaboration with OpenAI appears to be part of this plan.

What do senior experts think about this?

This was originally a collaboration between two technology companies, and after the announcement, it was widely discussed on major social forums. So what do the experienced spectators think of it?

In addition to AGI marketing, cooperation with OpenAI can help Microsoft enhance the value of Azure and keep it in the competition with Google and Amazon.

…

In the final analysis, it is OpenAI thatComputing cost and market sizeWorth 1 billion US dollars.

—Soumith Chintala, engineer at Facebook

Altman himself said that since OpenAI needs to purchase a lot of computing power, Microsoft’s investment may alsoFlow into your own pocket.

Under the terms of the contract, Microsoft will become OpenAI's sole cloud computing provider, so most of the $1 billion will be spent on computing power.

—Cade Matz, technology reporter, The New York Times

I see two main motivations:

For OpenAI, it can obtain funding and certain hardware support to help develop software.

For Microsoft, it's about increasing Azure's popularity among AI developers.

--James Wang, ARKInvest Analyst

Some people are not optimistic. They bluntly stated that this investment is just a purely commercial transaction, and they also questioned whether OpenAI will destroy the original "democratic" nature of AI while turning to for-profit research.

It's really cool to get a huge amount of money.

But in the pursuit of profit, they deliberately use misleading statements: first, they promote the name of non-profit,Then suddenly turned to the arms of for-profit organizations...

Like bullshit...

— François Chollet, Deep Learning Engineer at Google

I couldn't really comprehend the transition to being an LP and accepting a huge investment from Microsoft.

The whole incident seems to be a victory for capital.

—Robin Sloan, author

What is OpenAI? I am starting to get confused.

A non-profit organization with a normal cash flow, which has been quietly contributing to open source for many years, is suddenly preparing to turn to a for-profit approach and seek third-party authorization to close its technology. Is it really just because of the so-called AGI?

——- Stephen Merity, deep learning researcher

What we need is not something commercial, but something that can make knowledge available to everyone at any time.

——Sam Nazarius

The challenge is huge, but it’s okay to work together, right?

Back to the event itself, when will AGI, their beautiful wish of joining forces, be realized?

In a recent survey, some professionals estimated thatThe chance of creating AGI by 2099 is 50%.Statistics from the New York Times show that most people believe that AGI will not come soon, and in the worst case scenario, it may not come for centuries.

Altman himself admitted that it would be challenging for OpenAI to meet expectations. But in any case, everything has begun.

One possible reason why Microsoft chose to invest $1 billion over five years is that theyThere is not enough money and time to research AGI on my own.

OpenAI has always impressed the technology community with its innovations in AI. For example, in April, the game AI developed by OpenAI defeated a professional human team in a complex Dota 2 game.

Earlier, they released the powerful text generation model GPT-2, which also performed well in writing and was realistic enough to be mistaken for the real thing.

So what kind of results will be achieved after this cooperation? Will it really bring AGI closer? Perhaps we can only wait and see what they do.