Jan Reich, OpenAI's head of alignment, who leads a team focused on AI safety, has resigned from the company, saying, “Over the past few years, safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to our shiny products.” Ta.
“We disagreed with OpenAI leadership on the company's core priorities for quite some time, until we reached a breaking point,” Reich added in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
OpenAI “has a great responsibility on behalf of humanity,” he continued. “We are long overdue to take the impact of AGI (artificial general intelligence) incredibly seriously.” [artificialgeneralintelligence”
Reich's resignation comes just days after OpenAI's chief scientist, Ilya Satskeva, co-leader of the company's Super Alignment team, announced he was leaving the company. In her post announcing her resignation, Sustskever wrote that she is “confident that OpenAI will build her AGI that is safe and profitable.”
Reike and Sutskever's resignations follow months of speculation about what happened in November 2023, when OpenAI's nonprofit board fired CEO Sam Altman and removed President Greg Brockman as chairman. This was done after a flurry of messages. Even after Altman returns to his CEO and board positions, questions about the safety of the AI OpenAI is building continue to focus on the safety of his AI among board members and within the company. It was clearly a point of contention among the other members. company. After Mr. Altman returned, Mr. Sutskever appeared to disappear, leading many to wonder if he had been expelled.
Today, Bloomberg reported that OpenAI will disband Reich and Sutskever's “Super Alignment” team and integrate it into the company's broader research efforts.
At the end of the thread of posts about X, Reich spoke directly to OpenAI employees: Act with the gravitas that is appropriate to what you do. I believe we can “speak” the cultural change that is needed. I'm counting on you. ”
