What you need to know about OpenAI’s chaotic weekend
OpenAI is one of the world’s leading artificial intelligence companies. The abrupt resignation of Sam Altman as CEO on Friday caused an immediate uproar in the world of AI and among the investors behind it.
Now, two days later, in the latest twist, Mr. Altman is said to be in talks about a return to the company.
Under Mr. Altman’s leadership, OpenAI has become synonymous with artificial intelligence. The company made waves in the tech world after it released ChatGPT last year, with industry giants like Apple, Google and Meta rushing to develop their own artificial intelligence technology.
Here’s what you need to know about Mr. Altman’s departure and what could happen next.
What happened?
On Friday, Mr. Altman was abruptly fired as CEO of OpenAI. The move was so surprising – and meaningful – that some tech observers openly compared it to when Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985.
Details for his surprise departure are still emerging, but a dispute with an OpenAI co-founder appears to have played a role. Ilya Sutskever, a board member who co-founded OpenAI with Mr. Altman and a number of other people, is said to be increasingly concerned that the company’s technology could pose a significant risk, and that Mr. Altman is not paying enough attention contributed to the possible damage. . Mr Sutskever also took issue with what he saw as his own diminished role within the company.
“It doesn’t seem at all unlikely that we will have computers – data centers – that are much smarter than people,” Mr Sutskever said recently at a podcast. “What would such AIs do? Don’t know.”
Two other OpenAI board members, Tasha McCauley and Helen Toner, have ties to the Rationalist and Effective Altruism movements, which are concerned that AI technology could one day evolve into the destruction of humanity.
However, the board remains tight-lipped about the reasons for his departure. In the announcement on Friday, the board said little more than that Mr. Altman “was not consistently forthcoming in his communications with the board.” On Saturday, Brad Lightcap, a director at OpenAI, told employees that “the board’s decision was not made in response to any wrongdoing or anything related to our financial, business, safety or security/privacy practices. This was a breakdown in communication between Sam and the board.”
What was the reaction?
It was shock and confusion among OpenAI’s rank-and-file employees, and unrest among the company’s investors.
On Saturday, Mr. Altman and Greg Brockman, a former OpenAI president who resigned in protest on Friday, were in negotiations to return to the company. Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion in the company, is said to be particularly alarmed by Mr Altman’s sudden resignation and is leading the campaign to return him to power.
Microsoft, as well as other OpenAI investors such as Thrive Capital and Sequoia Capital, learned of Mr. Altman’s resignation a minute before the announcement, or after it was made public.
What happens if the board doesn’t reinstate Mr. Altman?
Mr. Altman, along with Mr. Brockman, would almost certainly build a new company.
Immediately after Mr. Altman was kicked out, he reportedly started talking to investors about a new artificial intelligence startup. Mr. Altman is known in the technology community not only for his work with OpenAI, but also for his years leading Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley startup incubator.
Alfred Lin, an investor at Sequoia Capital, posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that he looked forward to “the next world-changing company” that Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman would build. Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, said: “I can’t wait to see what he does next.”