OpenAI Founding Member Karpathy Launches AI Education Venture

One of OpenAI’s founding members says he is launching an “AI native” school.

Andrej Karpathy, who had been a key researcher for the company until February, announced Wednesday (July 17) his plans to launch Eureka, a venture that melds education and artificial intelligence (AI).

“Unfortunately, subject matter experts who are deeply passionate, great at teaching, infinitely patient and fluent in all of the world’s languages are also very scarce and cannot personally tutor all 8 billion of us on demand,” Karpathy wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

“However, with recent progress in generative AI, this learning experience feels tractable. The teacher still designs the course materials, but they are supported, leveraged and scaled with an AI Teaching Assistant who is optimized to help guide the students through them.”

Excited to share that I am starting an AI+Education company called Eureka Labs.
The announcement:

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We are Eureka Labs and we are building a new kind of school that is AI native.

How can we approach an ideal experience for learning something new? For example, in the case… pic.twitter.com/RHPkqdjB8R

— Andrej Karpathy (@karpathy) July 16, 2024

The announcement was reported by Bloomberg News, which noted that Karpathy is a “significant figure” in the AI sector.

He helped start OpenAI, and spent time with Tesla as the car maker’s senior AI director. There, he oversaw the team behind its autopilot system, before going back to OpenAI, resigning in the winter to pursue personal projects.

Karpathy’s new venture follows a recent company launch by another ex-OpenAI executive: co-founder/former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence (SSI).

This company, PYMNTS wrote last month, is focused on creating a safe and powerful AI system, a sign of another evolution from OpenAI’s roots.

“To understand Ilya Sutskever’s new venture, consider the goals of OpenAI, the company he co-founded in 2015,” that report said. “OpenAI aims to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI), a system that can rival human abilities. Their mission is to ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity, not just a select few.”

The company has two halves: the non-profit OpenAI, Inc. and its for-profit subsidiary OpenAI Global, LLC. The organization has been at the forefront of the ongoing AI boom, developing technologies such as advanced image generation models like DALL·E and the AI-enabled chatbot ChatGPT, and is often credited with kicking off the modern AI frenzy.

OpenAI has received billions in investments from the likes of Microsoft — its biggest benefactor — allowing it to pursue its ambitious research goals and develop AI technology.

“Despite its success, OpenAI has faced criticism for its shift toward a more commercial focus, with some experts arguing that the organization has strayed from its original mission of developing safe and beneficial AGI,” PYMNTS wrote.

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