It has appeared from the outside that AI model capabilities across the top labs are rapidly converging, and there are voices on the inside that are confirming why this is the case.
Vahid Kazemi, an engineer who worked at xAI, has said that he’s quit saying that all AI labs were building “the same thing” which was “boring”. He said that there was room for more creativity in the industry.
“I left xAI a few weeks ago. That was short! IMO, all AI labs are building the exact same thing, and it’s boring. I think there’s room for more creativity. So, I’m starting something new,” Kazemi posted on X. As per his LinkedIn, Kazemi is now working on a new stealth startup.
Interestingly, Kazemi had gone viral on X a month ago for saying that xAI’s team was 10x more competent than his team at OpenAI, where he’d previously worked. “I can confidently say our team at xAI is 10x more competent than my former team at OpenAI,” he’d posted on 9th January. After the post got a lot of traction, including responses from some OpenAI employees, it appears that he’d deleted the post.
But Kazemi’s point of all AI labs building the same thing is more interesting given how he’s worked at many of them. He’s spent a year at xAI and a year at OpenAI. Prior to this, he was a Machine Learning engineer at Apple for three years, and has also worked with Google for four years.
Kazemi’s departure — and unusual reasoning — comes at a time of what seems to be a exodus of talent from xAI. Three of its co-founders have quit in the last three weeks, bringing the total number up to six. This means that half of xAI’s co-founding team of twelve has now left the company.