Now after a staff revolt at the decision, with hundreds threatening to move to Microsoft, which itself had offered Altman a new position to run its AI division, Altman is set to return to run the company.
According to reports on X, formerly Twitter, OpenAI has agreed in principle to partly reconstitute the board of directors that had dismissed Altman, while Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers will join Quora CEO and current director Adam D’Angelo on the board.
The new board appears to exclude Helen Toner, Tasha McCauley and Ilya Sutskever. Oddly D’Angelo who was part of the board that decide to remove Altman went on to sign the now ‘famous’ staff letter which called for the re-appointment of Altman.
Altman’s original dismissal was for not being “consistently candid in his communications.” As yet, no one has explained what that actually meant.
Sutskever, who was OpenAI’s chief scientist and who appears to have now left the board, said earlier this week that he deeply regretted the board’s actions in dismissing Altman.
This has truly been a chaotic period for Open AI, which has in turn shaken up the AI industry.
Altman’s removal prompted Microsoft’s CEO to declare it was ‘self-sufficient’ and would continue to excel even if OpenAI disappeared.
According to those in the know, the root cause of the dispute seems to have been a disagreement over the speed of growth and safety concerns surrounding intelligent bots.
Whatever Altman’s views were, and which side of the debate he took, are now irrelevant. He is back running the company and along with Microsoft, appears set to dominate its future direction.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella welcomed the changes describing them as the “first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance.” As Open AI’s chief financial backer it now appears likely that Microsoft will have a bigger role in the direction of the business, perhaps even joining the reconstituted board.
Still, it would be good to know what caused the decision to remove Altman in the first place.
