Meta has poached at least 10 artificial intelligence researchers from ChatGPT creator OpenAI while reportedly offering some top talent packages worth more than $150 million ($US100 million) in the first year alone for joining its new 'superintelligence' team.

With Meta successfully poaching a number of its senior researchers, an OpenAI executive reportedly reassured team members Saturday that company leadership has not “been standing idly by.”

Meta has been aggressively pursuing AI talent from top labs, mostly OpenAI, in an effort to get a leg up on its competition. The details of the developing story are so dramatic and foreign to the rest of the world that it's become stranger-than-fiction fodder for the internet watching it unfold in real time.