OpenAI CTO Mira Murati on ScarJo Controversy, Sam Altman & Disinfo Fears | On With Kara Swisher

**Kara Swisher** (0:01)
Support for Pivot comes from Johns Hopkins University. Hi, it's Kara. I recently kicked off a new partnership with Johns Hopkins University. Over four events in the next year, I'll be hosting live, timely discussions on AI, tech policy, the upcoming election, and more at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center in Washington, DC as part of the center's new Discovery Series.
On today's episode, you can listen to our inaugural conversation featuring my interview with OpenAI CTO, Mira Murati. I'll keep you posted on future installments.
Hi, everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. We're off for the holiday today, but we have a special episode for you for my other podcast, On With Kara Swisher. In this episode, I- You have another podcast? Yes, I do. I'm cheating on you.
I'm cheating on you. And so are you. I know all your, yeah, which you're up to. Mr. Malice, no mercy, Malice.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:56)
No mercy, no. That's like, I got that from one of those-

**Kara Swisher** (0:59)
Why Malice? Why did you go to Malice?

**SPEAKER_2** (1:01)
No, I heard, I was watching late night at two in the morning on Edibles, one of those wildlife shows where a crocodile crunched the shit out of a baby cheetah and James Earl Jones' voice goes, I'm the Savannah, it is no mercy, no Malice. I'm like, boom, that's the name of my newsletter.

**Kara Swisher** (1:14)
Oh my God. I had no idea. Anyway, in this episode, I interviewed Mira Murati, the chief technology officer at OpenAI and one of the most powerful people in tech. Enjoy.
Hi everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On With Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher. Today, we have an interview with Mira Murati, the chief technology officer at OpenAI. OpenAI has certainly been in the news, but not many people know about Mira herself. She's only 35, but she's already one of the most influential women, scratch that, one of the most influential people in tech. She helped OpenAI skyrocket to the forefront of the generative AI boom with the launch of Chat GPT in late 2022 and what a ride it's been. The company's now valued at $80 billion after a big investment by Microsoft, and it recently signed a deal with Apple to put Chat GPT in Apple products. It's a major move by a very small company. Of course, it hasn't always been good news. After the board fired Sam Altman, Mira became CEO for just two days in what the company called the blip until Sam was reinstated. Since then, OpenAI has had to deal with a string of bad news cycles. There have been high profile departures, an open letter accusing the company of putting product over safety, questions about highly restrictive NDAs and even controversy over whether or not they had stolen Scarlett Johansson's voice. And with the presidential election coming up, the public's anxiety around AI fueled disinformation will only get worse. This episode's expert question comes from Fei-Fei Li, the founding co-director of the Stanford Institute for Human Centered AI and an early AI pioneer. In other words, a godmother of AI. And it was recorded live at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in Washington DC as part of their new Discovery Series, where I'll be talking to some of the top leaders in AI over the next year. I think Mira Murati is the best place to start.
This is Mira, everybody.
So, thank you so much for joining me at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center. We're recording this live.
There's a lot to talk about. We'll get some good news, we'll get to some not so good news, we'll talk about disinformation in the elections.
So, I think we'll have to ask first about the Apple partnership. Apple computers, phones, and iPads are gonna have ChatGPT built into them sometime this year. Obviously, this is a huge deal. It's the first one Apple's done. They've been talking to a number of people. They may include other people over time. You remind me a little bit of when Netscape got in different places, and you don't wanna have that fate befall OpenAI as becoming the Netscape of AI.

**Mira Murati** (4:23)
Yeah, so, I mean, I can talk about the product integration specifically, I can give you specifics on that, but what we're hoping to bring is really the capabilities of the models that we are developing and the multimodalities and the interaction to bring this thoughtfully into the Apple devices, then it opens up a lot of opportunities. So that's what we're looking for. And yeah, I guess we had great technology and-