With $1 billion from Microsoft, an AI Lab wants to mimic the brain - Times of India

As the waitress approached the table, Sam Altman held up his phone. That made it easier to see the dollar amount typed into an investment contract he had spent the last 30 days negotiating with Microsoft. The investment from Microsoft, signed early this month and announced Monday, signals a new direction for Altman's research lab. In March, Altman stepped down from his daily duties as the head of Y Combinator, the startup "accelerator" that catapulted him into the Silicon Valley elite. Now, at 34, he is the chief executive of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence lab he helped create in 2015 with Elon Musk, the billionaire chief executive of the electric carmaker Tesla. Musk left the lab last year to concentrate on his own AI ambitions at Tesla.