Interpretation of the research power behind ChatGPT: The post-90s generation has become the main force, and large manufacturers are no longer the first choice for top AI talents

The popularity of ChatGPT has not only brought capital attention and user favor to OpenAI. In the discussion about "Why OpenAI can make ChatGPT", its personnel advantages have also become the focus of attention from the outside world.

Recently, Wisdom Research and AMiner released a statistical report from the research team behind OpenAI. According to the report, there are 87 people who contributed to the ChatGPT project this time, including those who are "very young", "have a luxurious background", "focus on technology", "have deep accumulation", "advocate entrepreneurship" and "Chinese" Eye-catching” and other distinctive features.

##Report link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Y_LjjsuoEEmhIg5WO_iQhA

In such a team of less than a hundred people, the phenomenal large-scale language model ChatGPT was born, which is no small feat for major companies such as Google, Microsoft, Baidu, and Alibaba. Pressure has followed closely to release or pre-release ChatGPT-like products.

As a non-profit artificial intelligence research institution, OpenAI has always been regarded as a technological paradise by many young talents interested in developing AI careers. Here, they can directly participate in the most cutting-edge and creative AI projects, mobilize the core scientific research resources, and devote themselves to technological innovation without distraction.

In recent years, marginalization and indecision have caused AI research institutes and scientific research talents in large domestic manufacturers to face survival difficulties. However, I believe that under the impact of ChatGPT, AI talents will regain their competitiveness. Returning to the public eye will also usher in a new round of competition and reshuffle.

1

Technical personnel account for nearly 90%

The post-90s generation is the main force

from Judging from the job division of the ChatGPT team (Figure 1), among the 87 people participating in this project, the number of R&D personnel reached 77, accounting for 88%, including the company’s co-founder Wojciech Zaremba, who was previously Selected as the 2023 AI 2000 most influential scholar in the field of robotics.

There are 4 product personnel, accounting for 5%. In addition, the position information of 6 participants cannot be obtained.

##Figure 1: ChatGPT team position division

In terms of the age distribution of members (Figure 2), the post-90s generation is the main force of the team. Among them, there are 28 members in the age range of 20-29 years old, accounting for 34%; the largest number of members are in the age range of 30-39 years old, with a total of 28 members. 50 people, accounting for 61%; in addition, there are three people in the age range of 40-49 years old, and only one person is over 60 years old.

According to statistics, the average age of this research team is 32 years old.

##Figure 2: ChatGPT team age distribution

"Strong age" and "focus on technology" are two significant characteristics of the members of the ChatGPT team.

Although the average age is only 32 years old, the team members are highly focused on technology research and development. Based on their great interest and full dedication in AI innovation and research and development, they have created this new technology that has detonated the world. A phenomenal model of round technology. It can be seen that it is entirely possible for young people who are considered to have insufficient research and development experience to make major breakthroughs in the field of cutting-edge science and technology.

Currently, there is no shortage of young talents like OpenAI in China.

After the advent of ChatGPT, Zhang Jiaxing, a chair scientist at the IDEA Research Institute, quickly shifted the team’s large model development to ChatGPT’s conversational task line at the end of last year.

According to his disclosure, the main research forces in his team are also outstanding young talents born in the 1990s. Currently, the ChatGPT-like model they developed is as effective as ChatGPT, has only 5 billion parameters, and the text generation speed is also very fast. It is currently in internal testing and will be in public testing in the near future.

2

9 people have education from prestigious schools and are Chinese

Big factories are no longer the first choice for top talents

ChatGPT The number of team members with bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees is relatively balanced. Among them, 27 have bachelor’s degrees, 25 have master’s degrees, and 28 have doctoral degrees, accounting for 33% and 30% respectively. ,37%.

Among them, Stanford University has the largest number of alumni, with 14 in total, followed by UC Berkeley with 10, and MIT ranking third with 7.

##Figure 3: Top 10 number of ChatGPT team members graduating from universities

Chinese scholars are an important force in scientific and technological innovation in the team, with a total of 9 people, accounting for nearly 10%.

Among them, 5 people have graduated from Chinese universities, and 3 people have undergraduate degrees from Tsinghua University, namely Weng Jiayi, Zhao Shengjia, and Yuan Qiming. They currently serve as R&D engineers in the team positions; each has one person with a bachelor's degree from Huazhong University of Science and Technology and Peking University/University of Hong Kong, namely Jiang Xu and Weng Lilian.

They all went to the United States for further studies after graduating from top domestic universities and received master's or doctorate degrees.

## Figure 4: ChatGPT Team Chinese members of favored by them. Among the team members, a total of 5 have been named 2023 AI 2000 Global Artificial Intelligence Scholars. They are:

1. OpenAI co-founder Wojciech Zaremba (selected field and ranking: Robotics, 10th place)

2. ChatGPT researcher Lukasz Kaiser (selected field and ranking: machine learning, 10th)

3. OpenAI co-founder and ChatGPT research scientist John Schulman (selected field and ranking: machine learning, No. 41)

4.ChatGPT R&D Engineer Tomer Kaftan (selected field and ranking: database, No. 52)

5.ChatGPT Research scientist Barret Zoph (selected field and ranking: machine learning, No. 95)

The proportion of staff from external companies, recent college graduates, scientific research institutions and university faculty are respectively 81%, 13%, 4% and 3%, most of them are from top or well-known technology companies such as Google, Microsoft, Meta, Intel, NVIDIA, Apple, etc. A total of 10 people joined from Google, and 1 person worked at Baidu Served.

##Figure 5: ChatGPT team member flow

Statistics also found that in the research and development of the first seven technology projects related to ChatGPT, more people from the ChatGPT team have participated in their research and development.

The CodeX project has the largest number of participants, with a total of 22 people participating, accounting for 25% of the team; followed by webGPT and instructGPT, with a total of 9 people participating; GPT3 has a total of 6 people participating, ranking third; The fourth one is RLHF, with 3 people participating.

##Figure 6: The number of people involved in the previous seven major technology R&Ds of the ChatGPT team

It can be said that ChatGPT is the result of OpenAI’s years of technology accumulation in the field of large-scale language models, the gathering of top talent leaders and outstanding AI technical personnel, which has laid a solid foundation for the successful development of ChatGPT.

3

AI talent ushered in the battle

In fact, in the past few years, AI research institutes and AI Talents have long faced the dilemma of marginalization and strategic swings within large companies. Just like Google mentioned above, many talents have flowed to pure scientific research holy places like OpenAI.

AI personnel within large factories often find it difficult to develop their capabilities and achievements within the company’s organizational structure model.

But unlike traditional technology giants, if companies such as OpenAI take "developing artificial intelligence" as their own mission, AI R&D and innovation are their mission, that is, Participate in the most cutting-edge AI projects closely and use the most core resources for research and development. Behind the scenes, you must be able to withstand the responsibility of not producing results for a long time. Among them, the GPT model took up to three years from the first launch to the completion of training, requiring a complete set of systematic guarantees of funds, technology, and talents from the team.

The emergence of ChatGPT has brought AI talents back into the public eye, reiterated the importance of pure scientific research, and is bound to set off a new round of talent competition. At the same time, it will also increase the emphasis of large manufacturers on infrastructure such as large models and computing resources, and accelerate the catching up and complementation of underlying technical capabilities.

As former Sogou CEO Wang Xiaochuan said on Weibo, "The success of OpenAI is first of all the victory of technical idealism." The success of ChatGPT is inevitably inseparable from industry, academia and , research cooperation, behind which is the team members’ interest in artificial intelligence technology and their belief in it. There is no shortage of top scientific research forces in the country. Focusing on cutting-edge technological innovation and proceeding steadily is of great significance to promoting the development of AI innovation in China.

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