Meet the 34-year-old CTO behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT

– Designing the future. Mira Murati is not a household name. But the product she oversees—ChatGPT—is fast becoming one.

Murati, 34, is the chief technology officer of OpenAI, the San Francisco-based company that launched the popular chatbot nearly a year ago, ushering in a generative AI revolution and garnering the startup a reported valuation of $30 billion (if current rumors prove to be true, that figure could soon triple). Murati is also on the cover of our latest issue with a story written by Fortune reporter Kylie Robison and me, and Murati is a newcomer to the Most Powerful Women list, which published yesterday.

Generative AI is already having immense impact on pretty much every sector imaginable. But it’s what comes next that will have even more impact. What sort of regulations and legal precedents will be put in place as the technology becomes more and more ubiquitous? What kinds of jobs will be created, augmented, or outright erased in the process? That’s why much of our cover story about Murati focuses on the future—and her role in shaping it.

Christie Hemm Klok

Murati is optimistic when it comes to what’s on the horizon, as you’d expect. But she’s also clear-eyed, saying that AI could end up posing an existential threat to humanity (there’s just a “small” chance that it will wipe out civilization, according to the CTO). Interestingly, she devotes a significant amount of time thinking through the worst-case scenarios at OpenAI, asking herself and her team questions like “how bad are the bad things” that can be done with each product iteration. Indeed, OpenAI has erred on the side of being more restrictive with what users can do with ChatGPT (and DALL-E, a tool that turns text prompts into images). But there’s been plenty of room for errors and hallucinations, instances when chatbots like ChatGPT have concocted inaccurate—and sometimes worrying—answers to questions.

The fact that Murati’s role at OpenAI puts her at the forefront of this cutting-edge future is a bit ironic. The former Tesla engineer was born in Albania under a totalitarian communist regime, and credits boredom with helping to spark a curiosity for knowledge (even the slow internet speeds in her native country couldn’t stop her from tinkering with computers). Her trajectory at OpenAI, and of course the company’s own growth, has been lightning fast. But figuring out how to keep rapid innovation and iteration going—all while thinking through and planning for worst case scenarios—will likely only become more complex as the competition with other companies (and countries) increases.

Murati herself is concerned about the current arms race in AI: “I think the downside is a race to the bottom on safety,” she says in our cover story. “That is the downside for sure.”

Read the full cover story here.

Michal Lev-Ram
michal.levram@fortune.com
@mlevram

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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

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- Carta controversy. Venture capital powerhouse Carta is on the receiving end of two separate lawsuits, Fortune first reported, one of which accuses chief revenue officer Jeff Perry of unwanted touching as part of a “sustained pattern of sexual harassment and retaliation." Plaintiff Alexandra Rogers claims that CEO Henry Ward publicly humiliated her after she complained to human resources, which failed to properly penalize Perry. The other comes from a former employee who says she was denied the ability to work remotely despite having frequent migraines and fired two days after the request. Carta and Perry have denied all allegations and filed a defamation lawsuit against Rogers. Fortune

- In the driver's seat. Despite facing a labor shortage, the trucking industry is stuck in a self-destructive loop when it comes to hiring women: applicants can only be trained by employees of the same gender, but with women making up only 5% of workers in the industry, there are no women to train female applicants. Three women filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission yesterday against trucking company Stevens Transport for this practice, 10 years after a similar complaint succeeded against a different trucking business. New York Times

- In her shoes. Allyson Felix, who won more medals in track and field than any other American in history before retiring at the end of the 2022 season, is bringing that success to her women's shoe company Saysh. She was inspired to launch the brand after her 2018 fallout with Nike over its treatment of her as a sponsored athlete while she was pregnant, and after learning that most women’s shoes are based on models of men’s feet. Bloomberg

- Bay Area ballin'. The Bay Area is getting its own WNBA team. Joe Lacob, chairman of the NBA's Golden State Warriors, vowed to bring “all of our resources” from the men’s team to the new women’s franchise, which he thinks will bring in the most revenue of any WNBA team when it starts playing in 2025. ESPN

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: The National Women's Soccer League promoted Julie Haddon to chief marketing & commercial officer. Komodo Health appointed Julia Goebel as senior vice president of marketing.

ON MY RADAR

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Taylor Lorenz on her extremely online history of the internet The Verge

PARTING WORDS

"I think it was a relief for so many women because we suffer in silence with these issues."

—Lo Bosworth, former star of The Hills, on the success of her gut and vaginal health brand Love Wellness