The founder of ChatGPT, OpenAI, has resigned and is going back to work for the company that fired him only a few days ago. This is the end of a brief but chaotic power struggle that shocked the tech world and highlighted the disagreements surrounding the safe development of artificial intelligence.
Furthermore, Sam Altman, the co-founder of OpenAI, will report to a different board of directors than the one that dismissed him on Friday. “We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board,” the San Francisco-based company announced late on Tuesday.
Bret Taylor, a former co-CEO of Salesforce who presided over the Twitter board prior to Elon Musk assuming control of the company last year, will serve as its leader. Adam D’Angelo, the CEO of Quora, and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers will be the other members.
D’Angelo was a member of OpenAI’s previous board, which declined to provide specific explanations for Altman’s termination. This refusal resulted in a weekend of internal strife within the organization and increasing external pressure from the startup’s investors.
The unrest further highlighted the divisions between Altman, who has emerged as the spokesperson for the swift commercialization of generative AI since ChatGPT’s launch a year ago, and the board members of the company, who have voiced serious concerns about the growing safety risks associated with AI.
According to Johann Laux, an expert at the Oxford Internet Institute who focuses on human oversight of artificial intelligence, “the OpenAI episode shows how fragile the AI ecosystem is right now, including addressing AI’s risks.”
With rights to its current technology and having invested billions of dollars in OpenAI, Microsoft moved swiftly on Monday to hire both Altman and Greg Brockman, another co-founder and former president who had resigned in protest following Altman’s dismissal.
This strengthened the resignation threat made by hundreds of OpenAI staff members, who signed a letter demanding Altman’s return and the resignation of the board. The total number of names represented almost all 770+ employees of the startup. The AP was unable to independently verify that each signature belonged to an OpenAI employee.
Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist and co-founder of OpenAI and one of the four board members who took part in Altman’s removal, later expressed regret and joined the call for the resignation of the board.
Recently, Microsoft promised to accept any staff members who wished to follow Altman and Brockman to a new AI research division within the software behemoth.
Additionally, in a series of interviews on Monday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated that he was open to Altman rejoining OpenAI, provided the startup’s governance issues were resolved.
“The changes to the OpenAI board are encouraging,” Nadella wrote late on Tuesday on X. “We think this is a crucial first step toward more informed, stable, and efficient governance.”
“With the new board and (with) Satya’s support, I’m looking forward to returning to OpenAI, and building on our strong partnership” with Microsoft, Altman wrote in his own post.
The drama surrounding leadership provides insight into how large tech companies are leading the way in regulating artificial intelligence and its risks, while governments are lagging behind.
Without regulations, “companies decide how a technology is rolled out,” according to Laux, who noted that the European Union is currently working to finalize what is anticipated to be the world’s first comprehensive AI rules.
If you think the risks justify not involving the government, then that might be acceptable, but “do we believe that for AI?” he asked.
“Corporate governance and regulation sound very technocratic, but ultimately, decisions are made by humans,” Laux stated.
According to him, their opinions and beliefs regarding the level of safety of AI “have a huge influence,” which is why it matters so much who sits on a company’s board of directors or at regulatory bodies’ tables.
OpenAI, which Altman co-founded as a nonprofit with the goal of safely developing “artificial general intelligence” that outperforms humans and advances humanity, subsequently turned into a for-profit company that is still governed by its nonprofit board of directors.
In response, the artificial voice of ChatGPT suggested about 195 pizzas, making sure that each person received three slices.
Emmett Shear, the second interim CEO of OpenAI in the days following Altman’s dismissal, expressed his disappointment on X, writing that he was “deeply pleased by this result, after (tilde)72 very intense hours of work.”
Shear, the former head of Twitch, wrote, “I wasn’t sure what the right path would be coming into OpenAI.” This was the best course of action that combined maximizing safety with upholding the rights of all parties concerned. I’m happy to have contributed to the resolution.
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