{"id":83369,"date":"2023-11-22T12:22:25","date_gmt":"2023-11-22T12:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.estaql.com\/who-is-emmett-shear-openais-boss-for-just-72-hours-with-social-media-posts-on-womens-rape-fantasies-and-nazis-science-tech-news\/"},"modified":"2023-11-22T12:22:25","modified_gmt":"2023-11-22T12:22:25","slug":"who-is-emmett-shear-openais-boss-for-just-72-hours-with-social-media-posts-on-womens-rape-fantasies-and-nazis-science-tech-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/who-is-emmett-shear-openais-boss-for-just-72-hours-with-social-media-posts-on-womens-rape-fantasies-and-nazis-science-tech-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is Emmett Shear? OpenAI’s boss for just 72 hours – with social media posts on women’s ‘rape fantasies’ and Nazis | Science & Tech News"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Who is Emmett Shear? OpenAI’s boss for just 72 hours – with social media posts on women’s ‘rape fantasies’ and Nazis | Science & Tech News<\/h2>\n
Who is Emmett Shear? OpenAI’s boss for just 72 hours – with social media posts on women’s ‘rape fantasies’ and Nazis | Science & Tech News<\/p>\n
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Just when he thought he was in, they pulled him back out.<\/p>\n
Emmett Shear had an eventful weekend, appointed interim CEO at ChatGPT<\/strong> maker OpenAI<\/strong> after the sudden and dramatic ousting of Sam Altman<\/strong> last Friday.<\/p>\n
It was his first day job since leaving streaming site Twitch in March, a company he ran for over a decade.<\/p>\n
A self-anointed AI<\/strong> “doomer” who thinks development of the technology should be slowed down, he didn’t seem an obvious choice. And his hiring drew attention to his prolific social media posts on controversial topics.<\/p>\n
But now, after five days of open revolt among OpenAI staff, Mr Altman is set to return as CEO<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
Here’s everything we know about his short-lived successor, soon-to-be predecessor, in the role.<\/p>\n
Getting started<\/strong><\/p>\n
Growing up in Seattle, it was at school that Mr Shear met Justin Kan.<\/p>\n
They bonded over maths and trading card game Magic: The Gathering, and attended Yale University together. They also secured funding for their first tech project – a calendar app called Kiko.<\/p>\n
That funding came from Y Combinator, a start-up accelerator company which lists the likes of Airbnb among the internet firms it’s helped establish. For a spell in the 2010s, Mr Altman was its president.<\/p>\n
But it was Twitch’s predecessor, Justin.tv, that paved the way for Mr Shear’s success.<\/p>\n
What started as a 24\/7 live video feed of Mr Kan’s life became a public platform for anyone to stream video online, attracting more than 30 million users a month at its peak.<\/p>\n
But few topics were as popular as gaming.<\/p>\n
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<\/div>\n Image:<\/span> \n Emmett Shear in 2013. Pic: AP \n <\/span> \n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
Launch Twitch, get rich<\/strong><\/p>\n
To take advantage, Justin.tv launched Twitch as a spin-off platform.<\/p>\n
It would become the go-to platform for gamers to showcase their Fortnite kills and FIFA goals to a live audience.<\/p>\n
Twitch became so popular, with millions of people streaming their gameplay and tens of millions more tuning in, Amazon<\/strong> bought it for just shy of $1bn in 2014.<\/p>\n
It birthed a new class of celebrity, including stars like Ninja. In a sign of how lucrative game streaming has become, Microsoft was reportedly willing to pay up to $30m to convince him to join its own Twitch rival in 2019<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
The price Amazon paid in 2014 now looks relatively modest, and Mr Shear’s 12-year stint as CEO reportedly took his net worth well into the hundreds of millions.<\/p>\n
In his LinkedIn recommendation, Twitch co-founder Mr Kan describes his old friend as someone who “works hard, doesn’t complain, and the smartest guy I know”.<\/p>\n
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<\/div>\n Image:<\/span> \n Ninja became one of Twitch’s top stars \n <\/span> \n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
Mr Shear’s tenure wasn’t without controversy, however.<\/p>\n
He faced criticism for his handling of sexual abuse claims made against some streamers, and in 2020 apologised to those who felt his response had been “dismissive”.<\/p>\n
That same year, he also apologised to streamers hit by takedown orders – mainly from the music industry – which forced them offline for using copyrighted material during their broadcasts.<\/p>\n
He resigned in March 2023, saying he wanted to spend more time with his newborn son. But since then he’s been a part-time partner at Y Combinator.<\/p>\n
AI ‘doomer’ and controversial social media posts<\/strong><\/p>\n
Besides working with Y Combinator and spending time with his son, Mr Shear has been a prolific poster on X (formerly known as Twitter) since calling quits on his Twitch career.<\/p>\n
He’s posted more than 10,000 times over the past year, engaging in conversations about tech and societal issues like AI, as well as making controversial comments.<\/p>\n
In one post in August, Mr Shear wrote “between 40-60% of women seem to have rape\/non-consent fantasies”.<\/p>\n
In June, he joined a conversation about a hypothetical situation in which either “the worst people you know” rule the world or a 50\/50 coin toss determines whether everyone dies.<\/p>\n
“The Nazis were very evil, but I’d rather the actual literal Nazis take over the world forever than flip a coin on the end of all value,” he said.<\/p>\n
He’s also posted about how men are “more willing to have casual sex”, and joked about using AI to write chat-up lines.<\/p>\n
Sky News contacted Mr Shear for comment about his X posts, but has not received a response.<\/p>\n
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<\/div>\n Image:<\/span> \n Emmett Shear in 2015. Pic: AP \n <\/span> \n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
On AI, he said in September he’s “in favour of slowing down” development.<\/p>\n
“If we’re at a speed of 10 right now, a pause is reducing to 0. I think we should aim for a 1-2 instead,” he posted.<\/p>\n
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Two months prior, he said “there’s a chance” that general artificial intelligence – a super-powerful AI capable of outperforming humans at a variety of tasks – could be “catastrophically dangerous”.<\/p>\n
Developing such an AI has been the stated goal of Mr Altman.<\/p>\n
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Mr Shear has insisted he is a “techno-optimist” and denied accusations of “primitivism”, but in August compared artificial general intelligence to “a pit trap with spikes we have to avoid”.<\/p>\n
Following his appointment at OpenAI, he said the issue of safety was vital to his new role.<\/p>\n
“I took this job because I believe OpenAI is one of the most important companies currently in existence,” he added.<\/p>\n
Read more: How the chaos at OpenAI unfolded<\/strong><\/p>\n
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