Solidarity with ex-boss Altman
Hundreds of OpenAI employees want to quit
November 20, 2023, 8:48 p.m
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The surprising dismissal of Sam Altman is causing a stir in the AI industry. The attempt to persuade the OpenAI co-founder to return fails. Now a majority of the ChatGPT developer’s employees are threatening to leave if the management board does not resign.
After the dismissal of OpenAI boss Sam Altman, hundreds of employees at the developer of the chatbot ChatGPT have called for the resignation of the entire board of directors and threatened to quit. This is reported by US media such as the technology portal Wired and the “Wall Street Journal”. Accordingly, more than 500 OpenAI employees accused the management board in a letter of having seriously damaged the company with Altman’s dismissal.
The board of directors is not up to the task of overseeing OpenAI, according to the letter, which was also signed by many of the company’s executives. The “most stabilizing path forward” would therefore be for the entire board to resign and appoint a “qualified” board of directors.
Otherwise, employees are threatening to quit OpenAI and join the new artificial intelligence (AI) research team at software giant Microsoft, which Altman will lead. “Microsoft has assured us that there are positions available for all OpenAI employees at this new subsidiary should we decide to join,” the letter’s authors write.
Members of the Board of Directors regret the decision
Among the signatories is OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who himself is a member of the four-member board of directors that decided to dismiss Altman. Technology boss Mira Murati, who was temporarily named Altman’s successor, also signed the letter.
Altman was unexpectedly fired as head of OpenAI on Friday, triggering an earthquake in the world of artificial intelligence. OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman also resigned. As head of the ChatGPT developer, 38-year-old Altman had become the defining face of AI and a star of Silicon Valley.
On Monday, Microsoft – a key investor in OpenAI – announced that Altman and Brockman would lead an AI research team at the software company. According to media reports, OpenAI investors tried to get Altman to return to the startup company founded in 2015 over the weekend. The background to his dismissal is said to be a dispute over whether the development of AI should be more about the security of the technology or about making profits.
Unusually sharp wording
OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a non-profit organization with the mission to develop artificial intelligence in the interests of everyone. However, when it became clear that donations would not raise the necessary billions in investments, a for-profit company was formed with Altman at the helm. Among other things, he brought Microsoft on board as an investor, thereby securing OpenAI’s access to the necessary computing power.
However, the conflict between the two approaches became ever deeper. Now it is effectively leading to the split of OpenAI – with unclear prospects for the remaining company after the departure of leading employees. As of Monday, there was no official information about exactly why Altman lost the top job. The board said Friday only that it had lost confidence in Altman because he had not been honest in his communications with the board. That’s an unusually harsh wording for such press releases. After his appointment, the new interim boss Shear simply wrote that the trigger was not concrete differences about the safe pace of the introduction of AI software, but “completely different” reasons.