Gabriel Petersson, a self-taught Swedish researcher and former member of the team behind OpenAI's video-generation model Sora, has left the company. Petersson says he's going independent to build what he calls "the last product before AGI" — and he's loudly declaring himself in founder mode.
Petersson's personal path is a stark contrast to the elite credentials that dominate AI. Born in a remote Swedish village so obscure it barely appears on a map, he dropped out of high school at 17 and taught himself the skills that would eventually land him a role as an OpenAI research scientist.