Sam Altman has officially returned as CEO of OpenAI after a tumultuous time and change. And OpenAI officially has a new board of directors, replacing most of the board that tried to oust Altman in the days before Thanksgiving.
In a letter that was circulated internally at OpenAI and subsequently published On the OpenAI blog, Altman announced that Mira Murati, who was briefly named interim CEO by the previous board, will return to her role as CTO and confirmed that the new initial board will consist of Bret Taylor, former co-CEO of Salesforce. . ; Quora CEO D'Angelo, who served on the previous board; and economist and political veteran Larry Summers.
Microsoft will also gain representation on the board of directors in the form of a non-voting observer. Microsoft is a major investor in OpenAI, with a 49% stake in the for-profit entity OpenAI that controls a nonprofit organization to which it sits on the board. It was not clear who this observer might be, only that he will not have an official vote on board matters.
"I have never been more excited about the future," Altman wrote. "I am extremely grateful for everyone's hard work in an unclear and unprecedented situation, and I believe our resilience and spirit set us apart in the industry."
In the letter, Altman lays out OpenAI's priorities going forward, primarily advancing OpenAI's research plan and "investing more" in its AI safety efforts. Initial board members will also work to build a board of “diverse perspectives,” Altman promises, making unspecified “improvements” to OpenAI’s governance structure and overseeing an independent review of recent events.
"It's important that people experience the benefits and promises of AI and have the opportunity to shape it," Altman said. “We continue to believe that great products are the best way to achieve this. “I will work with OpenAI leaders to ensure our unwavering commitment to users, customers, partners and governments around the world is clear.”
The recent turbulent saga at OpenAI began when the former board of directors (consisting of Altman, OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI president Greg Brockman, tech entrepreneur Tasha McCauley, D'Angelo and Helen Toner, director of the Center of Georgetown Security and Emerging Technologies) abruptly fired Altman without notifying almost anyone, including most of OpenAI's 770-person workforce. The move angered Microsoft and other OpenAI investors, jeopardized the company's rumored stock sale, and led the vast majority of OpenAI employees, including Sutskever, to pledge to resign unless Altman was quickly reinstated.
What was reportedly at stake were disputes between the previous board and Altman over the direction of OpenAI. Publicly, that board accused Altman of “not being consistently candid” with board members. In private, Altman it is said that it was critical of Toner for an article she co-authored that presents OpenAI's security approach from a critical and frustrated Sutskever by accelerating the release of AI-powered features at OpenAI's first developer conference, DevDay.
With a message On “I would have done whatever I had to do… to avoid conflictive decision-making.” Quora's Poe chatbot aggregation service is perceived by some to compete with OpenAI's products.
"We expect that if OpenAI is as successful as we expect, it will impact many parts of the economy and have complex relationships with many other entities in the world, resulting in several potential conflicts of interest," Altman continued in the post. "The way we plan to approach this is with full disclosure and leaving decisions about how to handle situations like these in the hands of the board."
