Artificial Intelligence Development
Interested in technology as a child, she also developed an appreciation for using a team approach toward creating useful and morally honest technology.
PERSONAL BACKGROUND
Mira Murati (MM) was born in Vlore, Albania. Most of her formal education was undertaken in the U.S., where MM earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Colby College, followed by a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
While a student at Dartmouth, MM built a hybrid racecar.
Following college graduation as a mechanical engineer, MM was first employed as an intern at Zodiac Aerospace. Next, she joined Tesla (a pioneer in the field of electric motor vehicles), where she played a key role in the development of the Model X car and Leap Motion, a start-up that developed a computing system to track hand and finger motions.
CAREER INSPIRATION
MM said that her work at Tesla exposed her to A.I. and inspired her to look for a job in that field. Open AI hired her as its vice president of applied A.I. and partnerships. At the time, the company was a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring that artificial general intelligence benefited all of humanity. It later restructured itself as a for-profit company so it could raise the huge amounts of money needed to build its A.I. technologies.
EARNING PROMOTIONS
For years, MM worked behind the scenes at OpenAI, overseeing the development and delivery of revolutionary products such as text generator ChatGPT and image generator DALL-E.
(Editor’s note: GPT is an acronym for Generative Pretrained Transformative series of language models.)
Responsible for distribution of both image and text generators, MM can be significantly credited with attracting hundreds of millions of users after the introduction of those generators in 2023.
During a dispute between OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman and its Board of Directors, MM was promoted to the top position. The company said that “Ms. Murati had a unique skill set and would provide a seamless transition while it conducts a formal search for a permanent C.E.O.”
Though MM had carried the title of chief technology officer for a year, current and former employees said MM had been functioning as the company’s head of operations. She made sure that its engineers developed versions of ChatGPT on schedule. She also handled the company’s relationship with Microsoft. “As a result, MM has helped build some of the most A.I. technologies we’ve ever seen,” said a co-worker.
CHALLENGE – DISAGREEING WITH MANAGEMENT
After several years of leadership within the company producing Chat GPT, MM sent a letter to the company’s higher management, disagreeing with the company’s approach to certain new technologies. Others also complained, which illustrated the rift between two leadership factions within the company. When the leader about whom MM complained was restored to his position, MM and several of her colleagues, resigned.
(Editor’s note: Expressing disagreement with someone with a higher degree of authority within the organization, may result in several scenarios over which the disagreeing employee has no control. For example: a brief suggestion about a relatively minor problem may be ignored or implemented without affecting the employee’s status. However, if the complaint deals with major issues such as the morality of the current business model and the risk of bankruptcy, the complaining employee should be ready to consider other employment options.)
MOVING ON
Following her voluntary resignation from the ChatGPT organization, MM began to assemble a team to proceed with a different approach to using A.I. – Thinking Machines Lab. The scientists, engineers and A.I. builders led by MM have announced several goals for their new business:
-Helping people adapt AI systems to work for their specific needs
-Developing strong foundations to build more capable AI systems
-Fostering a culture of open science that helps the whole field understand and improve these systems
-Advance AI by making it broadly useful and understandable through solid foundations, open science and practical applications
CAREER SATISFACTION
MM has been praised for pushing the boundaries of machine learning while advocating for the responsible and ethnical use of A.I. technologies. She has also been credited with her ability to assemble teams having technical expertise, business sense and appreciation to keep working toward a successful mission.
“I believe that fundamentally if you’re building intelligence, it’s such a core unit in the universe that it affects everything. What else is there to do more inspiring than elevate and increase collective intelligence of humanity?”
Added MM to The Daily Show audience in 2023, “It’s very important to bring the public along, bring these technologies in the public consciousness, but in a way that’s responsible and safe.”
MM was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by Dartmouth for democratizing technology and advancing a better, safer world for all.
In 2024, MM was included by Time Magazine in its list of the 100 most influence people in A.I.
Still in her 30s in the mid-2020s, MM’s career is far from over!
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This career story is based on multiple sources including an article written by Tripp Mickle and Cade Metz published on 11/17/23 in the New York Times plus internet research. It is a work in progress for several reasons: The NYT article contained no information about what led MM to choose her career path; plus MM, still within her 30s, is far from her personal finish line if she continues to follow her path within A.I. development, using all her inherited intellect and business experience.
