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This is a '''timeline of OpenAI'''. {{W|OpenAI}} is a non-profit safety-conscious artificial intelligence capabilities company.
==Big picture==
! Year !! Month and date !! Event type !! Details
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| 2014 || {{dts|October 22}}–24 || Opinion Background || During an interview at the AeroAstro Centennial Symposium, {{W|Elon Musk}}, who would later become co-chair of OpenAI, calls artificial intelligence humanity's "biggest existential threat".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/27/elon-musk-artificial-intelligence-ai-biggest-existential-threat |author=Samuel Gibbs |date=October 27, 2014 |title=Elon Musk: artificial intelligence is our biggest existential threat |publisher=[[w:The Guardian|The Guardian]] |accessdate=July 25, 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://webcast.amps.ms.mit.edu/fall2014/AeroAstro/index-Fri-PM.html |title=AeroAstro Centennial Webcast |accessdate=July 25, 2017 |quote=The high point of the MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department's 2014 Centennial celebration is the October 22-24 Centennial Symposium}}</ref>
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| 2015 || {{dts|February 25}} || Opinion Background || {{w|Sam Altman}}, president of [[w:Y Combinator (company)|Y Combinator]] who would later become a co-chair of OpenAI, publishes a blog post in which he writes that the development of superhuman AI is "probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://blog.samaltman.com/machine-intelligence-part-1 |title=Machine intelligence, part 1 |publisher=Sam Altman |accessdate=July 27, 2017}}</ref>
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| 2015 || {{dts|June 4}} || Opinion Background || At {{w|Airbnb}}'s Open Air 2015 conference, {{w|Sam Altman}}, president of [[w:Y Combinator (company)|Y Combinator]] who would later become a co-chair of OpenAI, states his concern for advanced artificial intelligence and shares that he recently invested in a company doing AI safety research.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-y-combinator-talks-mega-bubble-nuclear-power-and-more-2015-6 |author=Matt Weinberger |date=June 4, 2015 |title=Head of Silicon Valley's most important startup farm says we're in a 'mega bubble' that won't last |publisher=Business Insider |accessdate=July 27, 2017}}</ref>
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| 2015 || {{dts|December 11}} || || {{w|OpenAI}} is announced to the public. (The news articles from this period make it sound like OpenAI launched sometime after this date.)<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/12/science/artificial-intelligence-research-center-is-founded-by-silicon-valley-investors.html |date=December 11, 2015 |publisher=[[w:The New York Times|The New York Times]] |title=Artificial-Intelligence Research Center Is Founded by Silicon Valley Investors |author=John Markoff |accessdate=July 26, 2017 |quote=The organization, to be named OpenAI, will be established as a nonprofit, and will be based in San Francisco.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://blog.openai.com/introducing-openai/ |publisher=OpenAI Blog |title=Introducing OpenAI |date=December 11, 2015 |accessdate=July 26, 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://techcrunch.com/2015/12/11/non-profit-openai-launches-with-backing-from-elon-musk-and-sam-altman/ |date=December 11, 2015 |publisher=TechCrunch |title=Artificial Intelligence Nonprofit OpenAI Launches With Backing From Elon Musk And Sam Altman |author=Drew Olanoff |accessdate=March 2, 2018}}</ref>
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| 2016 || {{dts|April 27}} || Software || The public beta of OpenAI Gym, an open source toolkit that provides environments to test AI bots, is released.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://blog.openai.com/openai-gym-beta/ |publisher=OpenAI Blog |title=OpenAI Gym Beta |date=March 20, 2017 |accessdate=March 2, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.wired.com/2016/04/openai-elon-musk-sam-altman-plan-to-set-artificial-intelligence-free/ |title=Inside OpenAI, Elon Musk's Wild Plan to Set Artificial Intelligence Free |date=April 27, 2016 |publisher=[[wikipedia:WIRED|WIRED]] |accessdate=March 2, 2018 |quote=This morning, OpenAI will release its first batch of AI software, a toolkit for building artificially intelligent systems by way of a technology called "reinforcement learning"}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.businessinsider.com/openai-has-launched-a-gym-where-developers-can-train-their-computers-2016-4?op=1 |first=Sam |last=Shead |date=April 28, 2016 |title=Elon Musk's $1 billion AI company launches a 'gym' where developers train their computers |publisher=Business Insider |accessdate=March 3, 2018}}</ref>
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| 2016 || {{dts|June 21}} || Publication || "Concrete Problems in AI Safety" is submitted to the {{w|arXiv}}.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.06565 |title=[1606.06565] Concrete Problems in AI Safety |date=June 21, 2016 |accessdate=July 25, 2017}}</ref>
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| 2016 || {{dts|July 8}} || Publication || "Adversarial Examples in the Physical World" is published. One of the authors is {{W|Ian Goodfellow}}, who is at OpenAI at the time.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.wired.com/2016/07/fool-ai-seeing-something-isnt/ |title=How To Fool AI Into Seeing Something That Isn't There |publisher=[[wikipedia:WIRED|WIRED]] |date=July 29, 2016 |first=Cade |last=Metz |accessdate=March 3, 2018}}</ref>
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| 2016 || {{dts|November 15}} || || A partnership between OpenAI and Microsoft's artificial intelligence division is announced. As part of the partnership, Microsoft provides a price reduction on computing resources to OpenAI through {{W|Microsoft Azure}}.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/15/13639904/microsoft-openai-ai-partnership-elon-musk-sam-altman |date=November 15, 2016 |publisher=The Verge |first=Nick |last=Statt |title=Microsoft is partnering with Elon Musk's OpenAI to protect humanity's best interests |accessdate=March 2, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.wired.com/2016/11/next-battles-clouds-ai-chips/ |title=The Next Big Front in the Battle of the Clouds Is AI Chips. And Microsoft Just Scored a Win |publisher=[[wikipedia:WIRED|WIRED]] |first=Cade |last=Metz |accessdate=March 2, 2018 |quote=According to Altman and Harry Shum, head of Microsoft new AI and research group, OpenAI's use of Azure is part of a larger partnership between the two companies. In the future, Altman and Shum tell WIRED, the two companies may also collaborate on research. "We're exploring a couple of specific projects," Altman says. "I'm assuming something will happen there." That too will require some serious hardware.}}</ref>
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| 2016 || {{dts|December}} || Software || OpenAI's Universe, "a software platform for measuring and training an AI's general intelligence across the world's supply of games, websites and other applications", is released.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://github.com/openai/universe |accessdate=March 1, 2018 |publisher=GitHub |title=universe}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/05/openais-universe-is-the-fun-parent-every-artificial-intelligence-deserves/ |date=December 5, 2016 |publisher=TechCrunch |title=OpenAI's Universe is the fun parent every artificial intelligence deserves |author=John Mannes |accessdate=March 2, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.wired.com/2016/12/openais-universe-computers-learn-use-apps-like-humans/ |title=Elon Musk's Lab Wants to Teach Computers to Use Apps Just Like Humans Do |publisher=[[wikipedia:WIRED|WIRED]] |accessdate=March 2, 2018}}</ref>
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| 2017 || {{dts|March}} || Grant Financial || The Open Philanthropy Project awards a grant of $30 million to {{w|OpenAI}} for general support.<ref name="donations-portal-open-phil-ai-risk">{{cite web |url=https://donations.vipulnaik.com/donor.php?donor=Open+Philanthropy+Project&cause_area_filter=AI+risk |title=Open Philanthropy Project donations made (filtered to cause areas matching AI risk) |accessdate=July 27, 2017}}</ref>
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| 2017 || {{dts|April 6}} || Publication || "Learning to Generate Reviews and Discovering Sentiment" is published.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/07/openai-sets-benchmark-for-sentiment-analysis-using-an-efficient-mlstm/ |date=April 7, 2017 |publisher=TechCrunch |title=OpenAI sets benchmark for sentiment analysis using an efficient mLSTM |author=John Mannes |accessdate=March 2, 2018}}</ref>
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| 2017 || {{dts|June 12}} || Publication || "Deep reinforcement learning from human preferences" is first uploaded to the arXiv. The paper is a collaboration between researchers at OpenAI and Google DeepMind.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03741 |title=[1706.03741] Deep reinforcement learning from human preferences |accessdate=March 2, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.gwern.net/newsletter/2017/06 |author=gwern |date=June 3, 2017 |title=June 2017 news - Gwern.net |accessdate=March 2, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.wired.com/story/two-giants-of-ai-team-up-to-head-off-the-robot-apocalypse/ |title=Two Giants of AI Team Up to Head Off the Robot Apocalypse |publisher=[[wikipedia:WIRED|WIRED]] |accessdate=March 2, 2018 |quote=A new paper from the two organizations on a machine learning system that uses pointers from humans to learn a new task, rather than figuring out its own—potentially unpredictable—approach, follows through on that. Amodei says the project shows it's possible to do practical work right now on making machine learning systems less able to produce nasty surprises.}}</ref>
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| 2017 || {{dts|August 12}} || || OpenAI's Dota 2 bot beats Danil "Dendi" Ishutin, a professional human player, (and possibly others?) in one-on-one battles.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/12/openai-bot-remains-undefeated-against-worlds-greatest-dota-2-players/ |date=August 12, 2017 |publisher=TechCrunch |title=OpenAI bot remains undefeated against world's greatest Dota 2 players |author=Jordan Crook |accessdate=March 2, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/14/16143392/dota-ai-openai-bot-win-elon-musk |date=August 14, 2017 |publisher=The Verge |title=Did Elon Musk's AI champ destroy humans at video games? It's complicated |accessdate=March 2, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.businessinsider.com/the-international-dota-2-openai-bot-beats-dendi-2017-8 |date=August 11, 2017 |title=Elon Musk's $1 billion AI startup made a surprise appearance at a $24 million video game tournament — and crushed a pro gamer |publisher=Business Insider |accessdate=March 3, 2018}}</ref>
| 2017 || {{dts|August 13}} || || ''{{W|The New York Times}}'' publishes a story covering the AI safety work (by Dario Amodei, Geoffrey Irving, and Paul Christiano) at OpenAI.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/technology/artificial-intelligence-safety-training.html |date=August 13, 2017 |publisher=[[wikipedia:The New York Times|The New York Times]] |title=Teaching A.I. Systems to Behave Themselves |author=Cade Metz |accessdate=May 5, 2018}}</ref>
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| 2017 || {{Dts|September 13}} || Publication || "Learning with Opponent-Learning Awareness" is first uploaded to the arXiv.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.04326 |title=[1709.04326] Learning with Opponent-Learning Awareness |accessdate=March 2, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.gwern.net/newsletter/2017/09 |author=gwern |date=August 16, 2017 |title=September 2017 news - Gwern.net |accessdate=March 2, 2018}}</ref>
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| 2017 || {{dts|October 11}} || Software || RoboSumo, a game that simulates {{W|sumo wrestling}} for AI to learn to play, is released.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.wired.com/story/ai-sumo-wrestlers-could-make-future-robots-more-nimble/ |title=AI Sumo Wrestlers Could Make Future Robots More Nimble |publisher=[[wikipedia:WIRED|WIRED]] |accessdate=March 3, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-openai-virtual-robots-learn-sumo-wrestle-soccer-sports-ai-tech-science-2017-10 |first1=Alexandra |last1=Appolonia |first2=Justin |last2=Gmoser |date=October 20, 2017 |title=Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company created virtual robots that can sumo wrestle and play soccer |publisher=Business Insider |accessdate=March 3, 2018}}</ref>
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| 2017 || {{Dts|November 6}} || || ''{{W|The New York Times}}'' reports that {{W|Pieter Abbeel}} (a researcher at OpenAI) and three other researchers from Berkeley and OpenAI have left to start their own company called Embodied Intelligence.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/technology/artificial-intelligence-start-up.html |date=November 6, 2017 |publisher=[[wikipedia:The New York Times|The New York Times]] |title=A.I. Researchers Leave Elon Musk Lab to Begin Robotics Start-Up |author=Cade Metz |accessdate=May 5, 2018}}</ref>
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| 2017 || {{dts|December}} || Publication || The 2017 AI Index is published. OpenAI contributed to the report.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/1/16723238/ai-artificial-intelligence-progress-index |date=December 1, 2017 |publisher=The Verge |title=Artificial intelligence isn't as clever as we think, but that doesn't stop it being a threat |first=James |last=Vincent |accessdate=March 2, 2018}}</ref>
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| 2018 || {{dts|February 20}} || Publication || The report "The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence: Forecasting, Prevention, and Mitigation" is published. The report forecasts malicious use of artificial intelligence in the short term and makes recommendations on how to mitigate these risks from AI. The report is authored by individuals at Future of Humanity Institute, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, OpenAI, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Center for a New American Security, and other institutions.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07228 |title=[1802.07228] The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence: Forecasting, Prevention, and Mitigation |accessdate=February 24, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://blog.openai.com/preparing-for-malicious-uses-of-ai/ |publisher=OpenAI Blog |title=Preparing for Malicious Uses of AI |date=February 21, 2018 |accessdate=February 24, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://maliciousaireport.com/ |author=Malicious AI Report |publisher=Malicious AI Report |title=The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence |accessdate=February 24, 2018}}</ref><ref name="musk-leaves" /><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.wired.com/story/why-artificial-intelligence-researchers-should-be-more-paranoid/ |title=Why Artificial Intelligence Researchers Should Be More Paranoid |first=Tom |last=Simonite |publisher=[[wikipedia:WIRED|WIRED]] |accessdate=March 2, 2018}}</ref>
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| 2018 || {{dts|February 20}} || || OpenAI announces changes in donors and advisors. New donors are: {{W|Jed McCaleb}}, {{W|Gabe Newell}}, {{W|Michael Seibel}}, {{W|Jaan Tallinn}}, and {{W|Ashton Eaton}} and {{W|Brianne Theisen-Eaton}}. {{W|Reid Hoffman}} is "significantly increasing his contribution". Pieter Abbeel (previously at OpenAI), {{W|Julia Galef}}, and Maran Nelson become advisors. {{W|Elon Musk}} departs the board but remains as a donor and advisor.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://blog.openai.com/openai-supporters/ |publisher=OpenAI Blog |title=OpenAI Supporters |date=February 21, 2018 |accessdate=March 1, 2018}}</ref><ref name="musk-leaves">{{cite web |url=https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/21/17036214/elon-musk-openai-ai-safety-leaves-board |date=February 21, 2018 |publisher=The Verge |title=Elon Musk leaves board of AI safety group to avoid conflict of interest with Tesla |accessdate=March 2, 2018}}</ref>
| 2018 || {{dts|April 9}} || || OpenAI releases a charter. The charter says in part that OpenAI commits to stop competing with a value-aligned and safety-conscious project that comes close to building artificial general intelligence, and also that OpenAI expects to reduce its traditional publishing in the future due to safety concerns.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://blog.openai.com/openai-charter/ |publisher=OpenAI Blog |title=OpenAI Charter |date=April 9, 2018 |accessdate=May 5, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/e5mFQGMc7JpechJak/openai-charter |title=OpenAI charter |accessdate=May 5, 2018 |date=April 9, 2018 |author=wunan |publisher=[[wikipedia:LessWrong|LessWrong]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/8azk2n/d_openai_charter/ |publisher=reddit |title=[D] OpenAI Charter • r/MachineLearning |accessdate=May 5, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16794194 |title=OpenAI Charter |website=Hacker News |accessdate=May 5, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://thenextweb.com/artificial-intelligence/2018/04/10/the-ai-company-elon-musk-co-founded-is-trying-to-create-sentient-machines/ |title=The AI company Elon Musk co-founded intends to create machines with real intelligence |publisher=The Next Web |date=April 10, 2018 |author=Tristan Greene |accessdate=May 5, 2018}}</ref>
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| 2018 || {{Dts|April 19}} || Financial || ''{{W|The New York Times}}'' publishes a story detailing the salaries of researchers at OpenAI, using information from OpenAI's 2016 {{W|Form 990}}. The salaries include $1.9 million paid to {{W|Ilya Sutskever}} and $800,000 paid to {{W|Ian Goodfellow}} (hired in March of that year).<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/technology/artificial-intelligence-salaries-openai.html |date=April 19, 2018 |publisher=[[wikipedia:The New York Times|The New York Times]] |title=A.I. Researchers Are Making More Than $1 Million, Even at a Nonprofit |author=Cade Metz |accessdate=May 5, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.reddit.com/r/reinforcementlearning/comments/8di9yt/ai_researchers_are_making_more_than_1_million/dxnc76j/ |publisher=reddit |title="A.I. Researchers Are Making More Than $1 Million, Even at a Nonprofit [OpenAI]" • r/reinforcementlearning |accessdate=May 5, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16880447 |title=gwern comments on A.I. Researchers Are Making More Than $1M, Even at a Nonprofit |website=Hacker News |accessdate=May 5, 2018}}</ref>
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| 2018 || {{Dts|May 2}} || Publication || The paper "AI safety via debate" by Geoffrey Irving, Paul Christiano, and Dario Amodei is uploaded to the arXiv.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.00899 |title=[1805.00899] AI safety via debate |accessdate=May 5, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://blog.openai.com/debate/ |publisher=OpenAI Blog |title=AI Safety via Debate |date=May 3, 2018 |first1=Geoffrey |last1=Irving |first2=Dario |last2=Amodei |accessdate=May 5, 2018}}</ref>
|}