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So, here’s the scoop: Even though I’m supposed to be unwinding somewhere else, the drama unfolding at OpenAI is too juicy not to spill the beans on. Guess what the talk of the town is? A whole bunch of OpenAI folks, more than 500 strong, put their names on a letter that basically says, “We might just walk unless we see some changes in the boardroom—and yeah, that includes getting Sam Altman back in the game.”
Let’s rewind to a week ago. I’d just dropped a story about the power play inside OpenAI. They’ve got this unusual six-pack board responsible for the whole “are we at super-intelligence yet?” question, and there’s been chatter about the unusual makeup of this board, especially with some members being big fans of the Effective Altruism movement.
Flash forward to the recent chaos: Sam Altman got the boot as CEO, tech whiz Mira Murati stepped in, and next thing you know, Greg Brockman is handing over his chairman badge and calling it quits. The timing was insane because just when I’d wrapped up my last article, all this went down, which I talked about in a post titled, “This week’s OpenAI board drama.”
In that bit, I talked about how it all clicked for me. The OpenAI nonprofit board is all about AI safety over making a quick buck, so it stood to reason they’d be at the center of Altman getting ousted along with Brockman. The folks over at The Information had covered how Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s top brainiac, saw the board’s decision as them just doing their thing for humanity.
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Back to our saga, after Altman got sacked and the world of AI went bananas, whispers started about maybe bringing him back. There’s even that snapshot of him rocking a visitor’s sticker at the OpenAI HQ. The heart emojis from the crew at OpenAI said it all—they were feeling the love for him.
The plot thickens with Satya Nadella, the main man at Microsoft, announcing out of the blue that Altman and Brockman are gearing up to take charge of some fancy new AI research gig at Microsoft. And guess what? They’re sending out the welcome mat for any OpenAI team member ready to switch sides.
Just when you thought you’d seen it all, OpenAI’s board, the same folks who showed Altman the door, turned the tables again. Mira Murati is out, and in strolls Emmett Shear, the former Twitch boss, ready to take the hot seat.
The OpenAI team wasn’t having any of it. After burning the midnight oil debating what to do next, many were peeved about being left in the dark over Altman’s exit. An avalanche of “OpenAI is nothing without its people” messages flooded in. The letter from the crew to OpenAI laid it out clear: they’re ready to join forces with Altman over at Microsoft—and they’ve been told there’s room for them all.
It’s a classic case of AI safety ideals clashing with human emotions. The very actions of OpenAI’s board, aimed at keeping AI on the safe side, have somehow stirred up a storm, rattling the industry and having their own team thinking of walking out. That’s not going to help anyone’s cause, least of all AI safety.
Ilya Sutskever’s got regrets, big time. His latest post talks about feeling downright sorry for how things shook out. His love for OpenAI’s achievements is still strong, and he’s keen to patch things up.
At the end of the day, this whole episode shows us that it’s the humans, not the AI, who are causing a stir. The boardroom might not seem as exciting as cooking up some cutting-edge AI, but it turns out those boardroom blues are something OpenAI should have paid a bit more attention to before things got all mutinous.
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