Microsoft AI unit chief Mustafa Suleyman on the competition with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI: “It is true that…”

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman has said that the company competes ‘ferociously’ with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, the company in which the Windows maker invested upwards of $13 billion. Suleyman also said that he dearly loves Sam Altman and trusts him on AI safety.

He noted that Microsoft’s AI plans are not so closely dependent on OpenAI.

“It is true that we have ferocious competition with them,” Suleyman said about OpenAI in an interview with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin at the Aspen Ideas Festival.

“They are an independent company. We don’t own or control them. We don’t even have any board members. So they do entirely their own thing. But we have a deep partnership. I’m very good friends with Sam, have huge respect and, trust and faith in what they’ve done. And that’s how it’s going to roll for many, many years to come,” Suleyman said.

What Microsoft’s Mustafa Suleyman said on Sam Altman and AI regulation

He noted that he wants to see both regulation and a slower pace for AI development.

Talking about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and AI regulation, Suleyman said: “Maybe it’s because I’m a Brit with European tendencies, but I don’t fear regulation in the way that sort of everyone seems to by default,” he said. Suleyman also described the former employees’ fingerpointing as a “healthy dialogue.”

“I think it’s a great thing that technologists and entrepreneurs and CEOs of companies like myself and Sam, who I love dearly and think is awesome are talking about regulation,” he said.

“He is not cynical, he is sincere. He believes it genuinely,” Suleyman said about Altman.

“Friction is going to be our friend here. These technologies are becoming so powerful, they will be so intimate, they’ll be so ever-present, that this is a moment where it’s fine to take stock,” he added.

Suleyman also noted that if all of this dialogue slows down AI development by six to 18 months or longer “it’s time well spent.”