CEO Of OpenAI Is Dismissed

Uploaded on 2023-11-17 in TECHNOLOGY-Key Areas-Artificial Intelligence, FREE TO VIEW

The CEO of OpenAI has been fired as the company board say it lost Loses confidence in his leadership.
Sam Altman who co-founded OpenAI, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) firm, has been fired. Following the launch of ChatGPT, the wildly popular chatbot developed by OpenAI, Altman became one of the world’s most visible tech executives and a sought-after expert on AI.

OpenAI’s board of directors said Sam Altman will step down as CEO and will be replaced on an interim basis by chief technology officer Mira Murati, who now becomes perhaps the leading female executive in the technology industry.

OpenAI’s board of directors include Quora chief executive Adam D’Angelo; technology entrepreneur Tasha McCauley and Helen Toner from the Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology. The board also said that Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president, “will be stepping down as chairman of the board and will remain in his role at the company, reporting to the CEO.” Brockman has subsequently resigned from the company, saying he was "shocked and saddened" by the news.

The dismissal of Altman was exercised by OpenAI's Board, which said that it has lost confidence in Altman’s ability to lead the company as he had not been "consistently candid with his communications".

Altman is one of the most high-profile figures in the industry and the 38-year-old helped launch OpenAI, which is behind the ChatGPT platform. In a statement on 17th November, the board said it was grateful for Mr Altman's contributions but that members believed new leadership was necessary. "Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.

“The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI," the company said, citing "a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities".

According to Greg Brockman, these event took place at short notice vai Google Meet video conference calls. He said they were "still trying to figure out exactly what happened" but claimed in a post on TwitterX that things unfolded over a few hours, “Sam and I are shocked and saddened by what the board did today” he published on Twitter on November 18th. Both Altman and Brockman sat on the company's board of just six executives.

ChatGPT is known for its ability to respond to prompts from users with human-like text, images and videos.
Hundreds of millions of people have tried it out, and many are now regularly using it to help them do their jobs and study - to consternation in some cases, like teachers facing essays written by the bot and people worried for their jobs.

The company has been facing various claims from writers who say the bot developed its abilities by harvesting their work, in violation of copyright law. Billionaire Elon Musk, one of the founding co-chairs of OpenAI, along with Altman has previously criticised the firm for straying from its non-profit roots.

On social media, former Google boss Eric Schmidt called Altman "a hero of mine" and said that he had "changed our collective world forever... I can't wait to see what he does next. I, and billions of people, will benefit from his future work- it's going to be simply incredible," he wrote.

According to Greg Brockman “OpenAI was founded as a non-profit in 2015 with the core mission of ensuring that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. In 2019, OpenAI restructured to ensure that the company could raise capital in pursuit of this mission, while preserving the non-profit's mission, governance, and oversight.

According to the official OpenAI statement “The majority of the board is independent, and the independent directors do not hold equity in OpenAI. While the company has experienced dramatic growth, it remains the fundamental governance responsibility of the board to advance OpenAI’s mission and preserve the principles of its Charter...”

This event came as a surprise to the company's employees, most of whom learned about Altman's dismissal from the statement company’s public blog.

OpenAI: CNBC: BBC: FT: Guardian: Greg Brockman @gbd: TVC: RNZ: JoyOnline:

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