Ilya Sutskever FRS (born 8 December 1986) is an Israeli-Canadian computer scientist who specializes in machine learning.

[12][13] Sutskever was born into a Jewish family[14] in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia (then Gorky, Soviet Union).

[28] At the end of 2015, Sutskever left Google to become cofounder and chief scientist of the newly founded organization OpenAI.

[36] The Information speculated that the decision was partly driven by conflict over the extent to which the company should commit to AI safety.

His decision followed a turbulent period at OpenAI marked by leadership crises and internal debates about the direction of AI development and alignment protocols.

Jan Leike, the other leader of the superalignment project, announced his departure hours later, citing an erosion of safety and trust in OpenAI's leadership.

[45] In an October 2024 interview after winning the Nobel Prize in Physics, Geoffrey Hinton expressed support for Sutskever's decision to fire Altman, emphasizing concerns about AI safety.