Sam Altman: ChatGPT Guru’s Sudden Departure Raises Major Questions That Should Concern Us All
The CEO of the company behind ChatGPT, widely considered the face of generative AI, has been ousted from the company he helped propel to the forefront of the tech world.
But for those who worry AI security, the emphasis is not so much on what Sam Altman then does what the coming weeks might reveal about the technology behind ChatGPT.
The OpenAI table, who announced the decision on Fridaysaid Altman had not been “always candid in his communications” with his members.
This hindered the board’s ability to carry out its duties and led to a loss of confidence in its ability to lead the company, the other members said in a blog post.
They did not go into further detail.
Greg Brockman, another of the founders, left the company after Mr. Altman’s firing, and three of OpenAI’s principal researchers followed him.
The dismissal was only possible due to OpenAI’s unusual governance structure.
It draws on its origins as a nonprofit that later created a profit-capped subsidiary that limits investor returns.
This non-profit structure means that board members are held to a fiduciary duty to create safe and “broadly beneficial” artificial general intelligence, rather than maximizing shareholder value like most corporate boards. business administration.
Learn more:
Who is Sam Altman?
Concerns and questions about a sudden departure
OpenAI has a tight-knit board of directors with just six members.
In addition to two of the co-founders, Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman, it consisted of Ilya Sutskever, the company’s chief scientist and the only remaining founder on the board, and three non-executive directors.
They are tech entrepreneur Tasha McCauley, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, and Helen Toner, director of basic research strategy and grants at a tech think tank.
If members justify Mr Altman’s dismissal by suggesting he withheld information from them, it raises concerns about the consequences of decisions made by the board and the impact they could have on the safe use of AI or its impact on society.
Members of the public have been using AI to help them with everyday tasks for decades, whether through a virtual assistant like Apple’s Siri or satellite navigation systems for directions.
However, it was the launch of ChatGPT a year ago which brought AI to the forefront of public consciousness as a powerful technology to be reckoned with and introduced many people to the concept of generative AI, which generates text, images and many other forms of content .
Mr. Altman was the public face of this accusation and a key driving force behind positioning OpenAI at the forefront of generative AI.
No board of directors would have fired him lightly, which begs the question: what was the impact of the decisions made by the board of directors in finding that Mr. Altman was not forthcoming? with them ?