ChatGPT: A Hundred Million Users in Two Months
In November 2022 OpenAI released ChatGPT, a product launched rather low-key as a technology demonstration, which unexpectedly set off viral attention and discussion worldwide, users vying to experience this natural-language conversation ability that had previously existed only in science-fiction imagination, and its monthly active users broke a hundred million within a mere two months of launch, becoming then the fastest-growing consumer application in history, and the concept of "generative AI," previously confined to academic circles, thereby truly entered the everyday view of the mass public.
A CEO Removed and Reinstated in Five Days
On 17 November 2023 the OpenAI board suddenly announced Altman’s removal as CEO, the reason vaguely alleging he "was not consistently candid in communication," a decision that shook the whole technology industry, with parties including the investor Microsoft urgently intervening to mediate, over ninety percent of OpenAI’s employees co-signing a threat of collective resignation in protest; a mere five days later Altman was reappointed CEO and the board was reshuffled — this storm interweaving a "dispute over AI-safety philosophy" and a "corporate governance crisis" is still a case often cited in examining the internal line divergences of the AI industry.