Ilia Sutskever
Co-founder and former Chief Scientist of OpenAI, who was reportedly a key figure on the board in the decision to fire Sam Altman, allegedly due to concerns about AI safety.
First Mentioned
7/26/2025, 3:35:01 AM
Last Updated
1/8/2026, 4:23:51 AM
Research Retrieved
1/2/2026, 4:53:31 AM
Summary
Ilia Sutskever is a world-renowned Israeli-Canadian computer scientist and a pioneer in the field of deep learning. He is best known as a co-founder and former Chief Scientist of OpenAI, where he played a critical role in the development of transformative technologies like ChatGPT and led the Super Alignment team focused on AI safety. Following his departure from OpenAI in 2024 amid internal debates over the company's commercial direction and safety priorities, he founded Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI) to focus exclusively on the safe development of superintelligence. His academic contributions include co-inventing AlexNet and pioneering sequence-to-sequence learning, and he is known for conceptualizing large language models as a form of 'lossy compression.'
Referenced in 6 Documents
Research Data
Extracted Attributes
Honors
Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)
Education
PhD in Computer Science, University of Toronto
Full Name
Ilya Efimovich Sutskever
Birth Date
1986-12-08
Birth Place
Nizhny Novgorod, Russia (formerly Gorky, Soviet Union)
Citizenship
Israel, Canada
Key Concept
Large Language Models (LLMs) as 'Lossy Compression'
Scientific Field
Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence
Timeline
- Born in Gorky, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union. (Source: Wikipedia)
1986-12-08
- Family immigrated to Israel when he was five years old. (Source: Web Search)
1991-01-01
- Co-invented AlexNet, a convolutional neural network that won the ImageNet competition, sparking the deep learning revolution. (Source: Wikipedia)
2012-09-30
- Co-authored 'Sequence to Sequence Learning with Neural Networks,' a pivotal paper for machine translation and NLP. (Source: Web Search)
2014-12-08
- Co-founded OpenAI as a non-profit research organization. (Source: Related Documents)
2015-12-11
- OpenAI announced the formation of the Super Alignment team, co-led by Sutskever, to focus on AI safety. (Source: Related Documents)
2023-07-05
- Announced his departure from OpenAI following internal turmoil regarding the company's safety commitment. (Source: Related Documents)
2024-05-14
- Announced the launch of Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), a new venture dedicated to safe AGI development. (Source: Related Documents)
2024-06-19
Wikipedia
View on WikipediaIlya
Ilya, Iliya, Ilia, Ilja, Ilija, or Illia (Russian: Илья́, romanized: Il'ja [ɪlʲˈja], or Russian: Илия́, romanized: Ilija [ɪlʲɪˈja]; Ukrainian: Ілля́, romanized: Illia [iˈlʲːɑ]; Belarusian: Ілья́, romanized: Iĺja [ilʲˈja]) is the East Slavic form of the male Hebrew name Eliyahu (Eliahu), meaning "My God is Yahu/Jah." It comes from the Byzantine Greek pronunciation of the vocative (Ilía) of the Greek Elias (Ηλίας, Ilías). It is pronounced with stress on the second syllable. The diminutive form is Iliusha or Iliushen'ka. The Russian patronymic for a son of Ilya is "Ilyich", and a daughter is "Ilyinichna".
Web Search Results
- Ilya Sutskever - Wikipedia
Ilya SutskeverFRS (Hebrew: איליה סוצקבר; born 1986) is an Israeli-Canadian computer scientist who specializes in machine learning.( He has made several major contributions to the field of deep learning.( With Alex Krizhevsky and Geoffrey Hinton, he co-invented AlexNet, a convolutional neural network.( [...] | איליה סוצקבר | | Image 9.jpg) Sutskever at Tel Aviv University in 2023 | | Born | Ilya Efimovich Sutskever 1986 (age 38–39) Gorky, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (now Russia)( | | Citizenship | Israel Canada ( | | Education | Open University of Israel University of Toronto (BSc, MSc, PhD) | | Known for | AlexNet Co-founding OpenAI Founding SSI Inc. | | Scientific career | | Fields | Computer science | | Institutions | University of Toronto Google Brain OpenAI | [...] 9. ^Sutskever, Ilya; Vinyals, Oriol; Le, Quoc V. (8 December 2014). "Sequence to sequence learning with neural networks". _Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems - Volume 2_. NIPS'14. 2. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press: 3104–3112. arXiv "ArXiv (identifier)"):1409.3215.
- Ilya Sutskever | Computer Scientist | Bio | Open AI and SSI
Ilya Sutskever was a pivotal figure at OpenAI, serving as one of its co-founders and its Chief Scientist. His technical contributions to the development of models like ChatGPT were rooted in his work on deep neural networks and sequence modeling. Early in his career, Sutskever co-authored influential papers on sequence-to-sequence learning—most notably the 2014 paper "Sequence to Sequence Learning with Neural Networks"—which demonstrated that recurrent neural networks (RNNs), particularly those [...] ## Biography Ilya Sutskever, born on December 8, 1986, in Gorky, Russian SFSR (now Nizhny Novgorod, Russia), is a prominent Israeli-Canadian computer scientist known for his significant contributions to artificial intelligence (AI), particularly in deep learning. His work has been instrumental in advancing machine learning techniques that underpin many modern AI applications. ## Ilya Sutskever's early life and education [...] Sutskever is perhaps best known for his role in developing AlexNet, a deep convolutional neural network that achieved groundbreaking results in the 2012 ImageNet competition. This work, conducted with Alex Krizhevsky and Geoffrey Hinton, demonstrated the potential of deep learning in computer vision and spurred widespread interest in neural networks.
- Founder Story: Ilya Sutskever of OpenAI - Frederick AI
## Early Life and Influences Ilya Sutskever was born on December 8, 1986, in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. At the age of 5, his family made aliyah to Israel, where he spent his formative years in Jerusalem. This multicultural upbringing would later contribute to his global perspective on technology and its impact. [...] Ilya Sutskever, a brilliant computer scientist and co-founder of OpenAI, has been at the forefront of the artificial intelligence revolution. From his early days as a prodigy in machine learning to becoming the chief scientist of one of the most influential AI companies in the world, Sutskever's journey is a testament to the power of vision, perseverance, and scientific brilliance. His work has not only pushed the boundaries of AI capabilities but has also sparked crucial conversations about [...] Ilya Sutskever's journey from a curious child in Jerusalem to a leading figure in AI research is a testament to the power of vision, dedication, and scientific brilliance. His contributions have not only advanced the field of AI but have also forced us to grapple with profound questions about the future of intelligence and consciousness.
- Story of Ilya Sutskever: before, during, and after co-founding OpenAI
Who is Ilya? Ilya Sutskever is the Chief Scientist and one of the co-founders of OpenAI. For those who are outside the AI domain, or are just living under a rock, OpenAI is the company that created ChatGPT. But these are the formal credentials of Ilya. I am much more curious about the person that is Ilya Sutskever. A natural question at this point would be why? Well, just to name a few: [...] monkey's brain that dictates if the monkey will like, say, mangoes or not. [...] Hospitality & Tourism Business Strategy Change Management Organizational Culture Design Innovation Event Planning Training & Development
- Exploring the Genius of Ilya Sutskever: A Pioneer in AI Research
Born in 1985 in Russia, Sutskever moved to Canada at a young age. He pursued his studies at the University of Toronto, where he earned his PhD under the mentorship of the renowned AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton. His doctoral research focused on deep learning, a field that has transformed how machines understand and process information. ## Contributions to 🇦🇮 🛟 [...] Ilya Sutskever’s contributions to AI are not just theoretical; they are reshaping industries and influencing the future of technology. As a thought leader and innovator, Sutskever continues to inspire a new generation of researchers and practitioners, guiding the evolution of artificial intelligence towards a more promising and equitable future. Please follow and clap 👏, if you liked it ❤️ Follow me: More content at: ## The Ultimate List of AI Assistants for Everyday Tasks [...] Sutskever’s work has been instrumental in several groundbreaking advancements in AI. He co-authored the influential paper on AlexNet, which demonstrated the potential of deep learning in image recognition and sparked a revolution in computer vision. His research 📌 on recurrent neural networks (RNNs) and sequence-to-sequence models has also been pivotal in natural language processing, leading to significant improvements in tasks like translation and text generation. ## Co-founding OpenAI 🪄