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Ilya Sutskever - Wikipedia

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Wikipedia·en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Sutskever

Credibility Rating

3/5
Good(3)

Good quality. Reputable source with community review or editorial standards, but less rigorous than peer-reviewed venues.

Rating inherited from publication venue: Wikipedia

Useful background reference on one of AI's most influential researchers; relevant to understanding the institutional history of OpenAI and the motivations behind safety-focused AI labs like Safe Superintelligence Inc.

Metadata

Importance: 55/100wiki pagereference

Summary

Wikipedia biography of Ilya Sutskever, co-founder of OpenAI and Safe Superintelligence Inc., and one of the most influential figures in modern deep learning. He made foundational contributions to AlexNet, sequence-to-sequence learning, GPT models, and other major AI systems. His departure from OpenAI and founding of SSI reflects his deep focus on AI safety and safe superintelligence development.

Key Points

  • •Co-founded OpenAI and later Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), reflecting a career arc increasingly focused on AI safety
  • •PhD student under Geoffrey Hinton at University of Toronto; contributed to AlexNet, a landmark moment in deep learning
  • •Made major contributions to GPT models, sequence-to-sequence learning, CLIP, DALL-E, and AlphaGo
  • •Played a central role in the November 2023 OpenAI boardroom crisis, initially supporting the board's removal of Sam Altman before reversing course
  • •Founded SSI in 2024 with a singular focus on building safe superintelligence, departing from OpenAI after a decade

Cited by 2 pages

PageTypeQuality
Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI)Organization45.0
Ilya SutskeverPerson26.0

3 FactBase facts citing this source

EntityPropertyValueAs Of
Ilya SutskeverWikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Sutskever—
Ilya SutskeverEducationPhD in Machine Learning, University of Toronto (advisor: Geoffrey Hinton)—
Ilya SutskeverNotable ForCo-founder of OpenAI and SSI; co-inventor of the sequence-to-sequence model and AlexNet; key figure in the deep learning revolution—

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# Ilya Sutskever

Ilya Sutskever

Computer scientist (born 1986)

| Ilya Sutskever<br>[FRS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fellow_of_the_Royal_Society "Fellow of the Royal Society") |
| --- |
| איליה סוצקבר‎ |
| [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Ilya_Sutskever_and_Sam_Altman_in_TAU_%28cropped%29.jpg)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ilya_Sutskever_and_Sam_Altman_in_TAU_(cropped).jpg)<br>Sutskever at [Tel Aviv University](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Aviv_University "Tel Aviv University") in 2023 |
| Born | 1986 (age39–40)<br>[Gorky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nizhny_Novgorod "Nizhny Novgorod"), Soviet Union |
| Citizenship | - Israel<br>- Canada<br>[\[1\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Sutskever#cite_note-jewish_news_syndicate-1) |
| Education | [University of Toronto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Toronto "University of Toronto") ( [BSc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor_of_Science "Bachelor of Science"), [MSc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Science "Master of Science"), [PhD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Philosophy "Doctor of Philosophy"))<br>[Open University of Israel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_University_of_Israel "Open University of Israel") |
| Knownfor | [AlexNet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlexNet "AlexNet")<br>Co-founding [OpenAI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI "OpenAI") and [Safe Superintelligence Inc.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_Superintelligence_Inc. "Safe Superintelligence Inc.") |
| **Scientific career** |
| Fields | [Computer science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_science "Computer science") |
| Institutions | University of Toronto<br>[Google Brain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Brain "Google Brain")<br>OpenAI |
| [Thesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesis "Thesis") | _[Training recurrent neural networks](https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/36012/6/Ilya_Sutskever_201306_PhD_thesis.pdf)_(2013) |
| [Doctoral advisor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctoral_advisor "Doctoral advisor") | [Geoffrey Hinton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Hinton "Geoffrey Hinton")[\[2\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Sutskever#cite_note-mathgene-2)[\[3\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Sutskever#cite_note-phd-3) |
|  |

**Ilya Sutskever** ( [Hebrew](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language "Hebrew language"): איליה סוצקבר; born 1986) is a [computer scientist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_scientist "Computer scientist") who specializes in [machine learning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_learning "Machine learning").[\[4\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Sutskever#cite_note-gs-4) He has made several major contributions to the field of [deep learning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_learning "Deep learning"), including [sequence-to-sequence learning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seq2seq "Seq2seq"), [reasoning models](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasoning_model "Reasoning model

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