More OpenAI lead figures depart from the AI startup amid reports of growing safety concerns for the technology's current development process brewing inside the company.
In a statement via Bloomberg, OpenAI announced one of its co-founders, John Schulman, is leaving the company to pursue more "hands-on technical work." Schulman is credited among the chief architects of OpenAI's popular ChatGPT.
The researcher clarified that the decision was not due to the "lack of support for alignment research," but rather stemmed from his "desire to deepen my focus on AI alignment."
I shared the following note with my OpenAI colleagues today:
— John Schulman (@johnschulman2) August 6, 2024
I've made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI. This choice stems from my desire to deepen my focus on AI alignment, and to start a new chapter of my career where I can return to hands-on technical work. I've decided…
Schulman is the second big OpenAI figure leaving the company for Anthropic, which is mainly comprised of former OpenAI employees, this year after AI safety researcher Jan Leike did the same earlier this year.
Other OpenAI Leaders Take Extended Leave Amid Another Leadership Shakeup
Meanwhile, OpenAI president Greg Brockman and 11 other co-founders are taking an extended leave from the company for undisclosed reasons.
Brockman is among the instrumental figures during the brief ousting of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman last year, joining the chief executive's departure from the startup before shortly be returning to his position after Altman was reinstated.
Another key figure in the ousting, Ilya Sutskever, also earlier left the company to create his startup focused on developing "safe superintelligence" models.
AI Safety Concerns Surround OpenAI Leadership
The recent departures of several OpenAI co-founders, despite claiming that the decision was for various reasons, is a hit on the company's reputation as safety concerns continue to persist around its leadership.
OpenAI has long been criticized for being secretive around the development process of its latest AI models, especially with the technology's tendencies to "hallucinate" information.
It did not help that the company recently dissolved its superalignment team responsible for the safety development of its products after Sutskever and Leike left.
Other concerns are about OpenAI's cybersecurity systems following a previous data breach that exposed the AI firm's internal data to bad actors.
