"What was the technology like at that point?" Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers asks Sutskever, in a rare interjection, showing genuine curiosity. Comparing AI in 2018 to now, "it was like the difference between an ant and a cat," says Sutskever. "It's a big difference."

Ilya Sutskever and the rest of the OpenAI board briefly fired Sam Altman as CEO in 2023. “This kind of environment, where the executives [don’t] exactly have the correct information, makes the environment not conducive to attaining any difficult, grand goal,” such as “safe AGI," says Sutskever, reflecting on the event. He thought about firing Altman for a year before doing so.

Day 9 of Musk v. Altman trial in federal court in Oakland, California. Ilya Sutskever, former OpenAI chief scientist, and Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, will testify. I'm a reporter (and lawyer) at @techreview

When asked if Sam Altman was not candid with her by fall of 2023, Mira Murati takes a long pause, sighs, and says, "Not always." “I had an incredibly hard job to do in an organization that was very complex, and I was asking Sam to lead and lead with clarity," she says.

Shivon Zilis describes her complicated relationship with Elon Musk. Before 2020, "there had been kind of a one-off at the offsite," she says, describing it as romantic. “Then we were friends and eventually colleagues,” she says. Later, when she wanted to be a mom, "Elon had made the offer around that time [to be a sperm donor] … and I accepted," she says.