OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, fires its top executive for lack of "trust"

 

The American artificial intelligence company OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, announced this Friday the dismissal of Sam Altman as CEO and member of the board of directors after having lost the "trust" of this body .

The board of directors today released a statement about a "leadership transition" in which it indicated that it has concluded that Altman "was not consistently honest in his communications" with the body, which "impaired his ability to exercise his responsibilities."

"The board of directors no longer has confidence in your ability to continue leading OpenAI," indicates the message, which names Mira Murati, until now chief technology officer, as interim CEO while a "permanent" candidate is searched.

"OpenAI was deliberately structured to advance our mission: to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity," says the body about a type of technology that has not yet been developed and that is increasingly similar to human intelligence.

The managers once again briefly refer to Altman, the visible face of the company and the era of innovation in this field, only to thank him for his "many contributions", including its founding, in 2015, and its "growth."

Altman co-founded and co-chaired OpenAI alongside Elon Musk, who left the company in 2018.

OpenAI has a multimillion-dollar agreement with Microsoft and is riding the crest of the wave of advances in generative artificial intelligence since it launched, almost a year ago, ChatGPT, a chatbot that went viral for its ability to converse with human users.

Another change announced today is the departure of Chairman of the Board of Directors, Greg Brockman, who "will continue his role in the company, reporting to the CEO."

OpenAI, which is structured as a non-profit company and governed by a majority independent board of directors - independent members have no equity participation - assured that it remains "fully committed" to its mission.

The board consists of chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who is not independent, and Adam D'Angelo (CEO of Quora), Tasha McCauley (tech entrepreneur), and Helen Toner (a scholar at the Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology).