OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, recently acknowledged Prafulla Dhariwal, a talented individual from Pune, for his pivotal role in developing ChatGPT 4o, a groundbreaking AI model. Altman took to X, previously known as Twitter, to express his appreciation, stating, “GPT-4o would not have happened without the vision, talent, conviction, and determination of Prafulla Dhariwal over a long period of time.” He also emphasized the collaborative effort, adding, “That (along with the work of many others) led to what I hope will turn out to be a revolution in how we use computers.”
Altman’s commendation was prompted by Dhariwal’s announcement about the new AI model. Dhariwal described GPT-4o (o for “omni”) as OpenAI’s pioneering fully multimodal model, reflecting on the extensive teamwork behind its development. He expressed gratitude to his team members for their contributions to this innovative model.
Dhariwal, known for his academic excellence, has a history of notable achievements. He received the National Talent Search Scholarship from the Government of India and secured a gold medal at the International Astronomy Olympiad in China in 2009. His accolades also include gold medals in the International Mathematical Olympiad and International Physics Olympiad. He completed his Bachelor’s in Computer Science (Mathematics) with a perfect GPA of 5.0/5.0 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2017.
Following his graduation, Dhariwal gained experience as a software engineer at Pinterest and as a quantitative analyst intern at the D.E. Shaw Group. In 2016, he joined OpenAI as a research intern and currently serves as a Research Scientist at the AI startup. Dhariwal has made significant contributions to various projects, including GPT-3, DALL-E 2 (text-to-image platform), Jukebox (music generator), and Glow (reversible generative model).
