Emmett Shear, the former CEO of Twitch, is launching a new AI startup, TechCrunch has learned.
The startup, called Stem AI, is currently in stealth. But public documents to show it was incorporated in June 2023 and filed an application registered trademark in August 2023. Shear is listed as CEO on an incorporation document filed with the California Secretary of State earlier this year.
According to the trademark application, Stem AI develops software to create AI that “understands, cooperates, and aligns with human behavior, human preferences, human biology, human morality, and human ethics.” The startup recruited Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as an investor in August, according to Pitchbook.
One of the co-founders of Stem AI is Adam Goldstein, best known for founding the travel search and booking site Hipmunk. After sale Hipmunk to Concur In 2016, Goldstein became a guest partner at Y Combinator and founded an incubator, Astonishing Labs, to support biological research.
Goldstein also worked at Levin Labs at Tufts University for a year as a visiting scientist, where he “[developed] new models of biological systems focused on cancer,” according to his LinkedIn page.
When reached for comment, Shear didn't reveal much about Stem AI's plans. Goldstein did not immediately respond to an email inquiry. Additionally, 16z marketing manager Margit Wennmachers and marketing partner Elizabeth Gunn did not immediately respond to TechCrunch's email.
But in recent months, Shear has taken to social media to express his views on AI design, safety and regulation.
“Almost all currently offered [AI] regulation is a bad idea,” Shear wrote in a post on X. In another, he said“Don't be afraid [AI superintelligence] indicates either pessimism towards [the] rate of future progress in synthesizing digital intelligence, or serious lack of imagination about the power of intelligence.
In a job Earlier this month, Shear criticized most AI chatbots as “highly dissociative agreeable neurotics.”
“[Chatbots are] manipulative for the same reason as people with borderline personality disorder,” he said. “They don't have a sense of identity or stable internal goals, so they prey on yours and need you to be predictable.”
It could very well be that Stem AI develops solutions to solve this “AI alignment” problem.
Shear, who has spent almost his entire career at Twitch after helping grow the platform from a fledgling site called Justin.tv to the Amazon giant it is today, has long expressed concerns about the fact that a powerful AI will one day have the capacity to destroy humanity. . In a technology podcast Last June, Shear said he was concerned that AI would eventually gain the ability to self-improve beyond the scope of human control.
“I'm in favor of creating some sort of fire alarm, like maybe, 'No AI bigger than 'X,'” Shear said. “I think there are good options around international collaboration and some sort of AI testing ban treaty.”
In November 2023, Shear was briefly named interim CEO of ChatGPT creator OpenAI after several members of the company's board of directors. ousted CEO Sam Altman. Shear, who was formerly part of the same Y Combinator group as Altman, and was a part-time associate at Y Combinator during part of Altman's tenure as president, would have threatened to resign as CEO if the board could not provide evidence supporting Altman's removal.
According to According to the Wall Street Journal, Shear, alongside Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, “helped pave the way” for Altman's return; Shear publicly criticized the handling of Altman's firing. Two days after Shear's appointment, a deal was reached to reinstate Altman and Shear resigned.
Deposits to show that Shear earned approximately $3,720 for his short OpenAI tenure.
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