Meta just hired the co-creator of ChatGPT in an escalating AI talent war with OpenAI

Group 1 - Meta has appointed Shengjia Zhao, a co-creator of ChatGPT and former lead scientist at OpenAI, as the chief scientist of its Superintelligence Labs, marking a significant escalation in the AI talent war [1][2] - Zhao will collaborate directly with CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Alexandr Wang, Meta's newly appointed chief AI officer, as part of a broader multibillion-dollar investment strategy in AI, which includes a $15 billion investment in Scale AI [2] - Meta has also recruited three researchers from OpenAI's Zurich office, expanding its Superintelligence Labs team with talent previously associated with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google [3] Group 2 - The competition for AI talent is intense, with estimates suggesting fewer than 1,000 individuals globally can build frontier AI models, leading companies to seek alternative incentives like hackathons and computing power [4] - Executives in the tech industry have mixed feelings about Meta's aggressive hiring strategy, with some acknowledging the necessity of such actions given Meta's current position in the AI landscape [9] - OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman criticized Meta's focus on financial incentives for talent acquisition, suggesting it may not foster a positive company culture [10]