File photo of Sam Altman at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Week in San ... [+]
Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, has departed the artificial intelligence company, according to a press release published to the ChatGPT creator’s website.
“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 board said in a statement published to the OpenAI website.
Altman did not immediately respond to questions over Twitter on Friday. Reached for comment via email on Friday, a spokesperson for OpenAI did not elaborate on what Altman was not being “candid” about that led to his ouster. Mira Murati, the company’s CTO, will serve as interim CEO starting today.
ChatGPT was first publicly released in late 2022 and became an instant hit for allowing people to converse in natural language with an artificial intelligence entity. OpenAI offers both a free and paid version of its GPT products, which have come under fire for allegations of copyright infringement. ChatGPT is what’s called a large-language model, which is trained on an enormous amount of data to be able to respond to people like a human being would. But that training data is often pirated material, according to many copyright holders who have launched lawsuits against the company.
OpenAI was founded in 2015 along with billionaire Elon Musk who was pushed out of the company back when it was still a nonprofit. OpenAI has since restructured as a for-profit company.
OpenAI’s board of directors includes OpenAI’s chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, tech businesswoman Tasha McCauley and Helen Toner from the Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
“OpenAI was deliberately structured to advance our mission: to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all humanity. The board remains fully committed to serving this mission,” the OpenAI board said in a public statement.
“We are grateful for Sam’s many contributions to the founding and growth of OpenAI. At the same time, we believe new leadership is necessary as we move forward. As the leader of the company’s research, product, and safety functions, Mira is exceptionally qualified to step into the role of interim CEO. We have the utmost confidence in her ability to lead OpenAI during this transition period.”
