Sam Altman, chief executive officer (CEO) of OpenAI and inventor of the AI software ChatGPT, joins the Technical University of Munich (TUM) for a panel discussion.
Sven Hoppe | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
Microsoft could have a nonvoting board seat at OpenAI, the corporate announced Wednesday.
The move quells a number of the remaining questions on Microsoft’s interest within the startup after a turbulent month that saw the corporate’s controlling nonprofit board fire after which rehire CEO Sam Altman.
OpenAI’s outlook has been intertwined with Microsoft for the reason that software giant invested $13 billion into OpenAI and integrated its AI models into Office and other Microsoft programs. Previously, Microsoft didn’t have official representation on the board of directors that controlled the startup, allowing it to be surprised when Altman was first fired.
“We clearly made the best alternative to partner with Microsoft and I’m excited that our latest board will include them as a non-voting observer,” Altman said in a note to staff posted on OpenAI’s website.
Altman commended the team and said that OpenAI didn’t lose any employees within the upheaval.
“Now that we’re through all of this, we didn’t lose a single worker. You stood firm for one another, this company, and our mission,” Altman wrote.
Altman said in his note that a board of directors — including former Salesforce CEO Bret Taylor, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo — would construct out a latest board of directors for the startup.
Mira Murati, who had been OpenAI’s CTO and was briefly named interim CEO earlier this month, is the corporate’s CTO once more, and Greg Brockman has returned as OpenAI president.
Taylor, who will lead the brand new board, said in a message posted on OpenAI’s website that he was focused on “strengthening OpenAI’s corporate governance.” In a subsequent post on X, formerly Twitter, Taylor said that he would depart the board after it’s fully staffed and the corporate is stabilized.
“As I actually have communicated to board colleagues and management, when these transitional tasks have been accomplished, I intend to step away and leave the oversight of OpenAI in the nice hands of board colleagues,” Taylor tweeted.
A Microsoft spokesperson declined to discover the one that will join OpenAI board meetings but won’t have a vote.
Who’s on the board
Most board members, including cofounder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who were serving at the time Altman was removed, have left the board, apart from D’Angelo.
The explanations for Altman’s firing remain unclear. While the board cited a scarcity of transparency, issues over so-called “AI safety” and debates over whether the corporate should decelerate its development of powerful AI it calls AGI might have been an element.
Helen Toner, who had been an OpenAI board member since 2021, resigned from her role Wednesday. In a post on X, she wrote, “To be clear: our decision was in regards to the board’s ability to effectively supervise the corporate, which was our role and responsibility. Though there was speculation, we weren’t motivated by a desire to decelerate OpenAI’s work.”
Toner has been a director of strategy for Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology for nearly five years, and in addition has hung out at the University of Oxford’s Center for the Governance of AI. She has also given a refer to the effective altruism community and been involved in its discussion forum.
“Constructing AI systems which can be secure, reliable, fair, and interpretable is an unlimited open problem,” Toner told the Journal of Political Risk last 12 months. “Organizations constructing and deploying AI can even must recognize that beating their competitors to market — or to the battlefield — is to no avail if the systems they’re fielding are buggy, hackable, or unpredictable.”
In a post on X, Altman mentioned Toner’s resignation and appeared to confirm Tasha McCauley’s as well. McCauley, who had been an OpenAI board member since 2018, is an adjunct senior management scientist at Rand Corporation.
“The very best interests of the corporate and the mission all the time come first,” Altman wrote in a post on X. “It is evident that there have been real misunderstandings between me and members of the board. In my view, it’s incredibly necessary to learn from this experience and apply those learnings as we move forward as an organization. I welcome the board’s independent review of all recent events. I’m thankful to Helen and Tasha for his or her contributions to the strength of OpenAI.”
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