No Hollywood spy movie would dare to shoot like this. On November 17, local time, in a video conference, OpenAI’s board of directors suddenly announced that co-founder and CEO Sam Altman would leave immediately, Greg Brockman, a key figure in the development of ChatGPT, was also dismissed, and the company’s CTOMira Murati was appointed as interim CEO.
In a post on X, Sam Altman said "I loved my time at OpenAI" and that he would have "more to say about the future later."
Greg Brockman said, "Sam and I are shocked and saddened by the board's actions today." "We will be fine. Greater things are coming."
Now, everyone is guessing, what happened to OpenAI? Why fire Sam Altman and oust Greg Brockman?
OpenAI's board of directors consists of OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo, tech entrepreneur Tasha McCauley and Helen Toner, director of strategy at the Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technologies.
Just before OpenAI announced the dismissal of Sam Altman, llya sent Sam a text message informing him to join the video conference on the morning of the 17th. Everyone knows what happened next.
From the current information,The dismissal was informed of the dismissal by board member Ilya Sutskever, who led aAIsecurity team while ad hocCEOMiraMurati also knew in advance.
The reason why Sam Altman was finally kicked out may not be the "court fight" between chief scientist llya, but the "security" issue that the entire AI industry is talking about and that worries global regulators the most.
'Safety' disagreement
Before Sam Altman was fired, there was an internal discussion at OpenAIAIDisagreement and debate over security persist.
This summer, OpenAI established a security team dedicated to finding technical solutions to prevent AI from getting out of control, and to understand and limit the harm of AI to society, such as abuse, economic chaos, false information, bias and discrimination, addiction and over-dependence, and stated that it will use 20% of the computing power obtained by the company for this work.
One of the people who leads the security team isOpenAIIlya Sutskever, co-founder, chief scientist and board member, it was this person who gave Sam Altman a dismissal ultimatum.
Sam Altman and Ilya Sutskever (right) at an event in Tel Aviv｜qz.com
According to Greg Brockman, on the evening of November 16, US time, Sam received a text message from Ilya asking to talk at noon on Friday. Sam joins a meeting and the entire board is there except Greg. Ilya told Sam he was fired and the news would be released soon.
At noon on November 17, Greg received a text message from Ilya asking for a quick phone call. Ilya sent a link to the meeting, and Greg was subsequently informed that he would be removed from the board, but that the company would retain his role.
Greg was one of the earliest employees of OpenAI, spent a lot of time writing software, was a key figure in the development of ChatGPT and other core products, and holds equity in the company.He resigned hours after the board fired Sam Altman, perhaps because he was a close ally of Sam Altman.
Around the same time, OpenAI published a blog post. "Mr. Altman's departure follows the Board's deliberative review process, which concluded that he had been inconsistent in his communications with the Board, which hindered his ability to perform his duties. The Board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue to lead OpenAI."
Everyone is questioning whether this is a malicious "coup" at OpenAI. The fired Sam Altman received an outpouring of support and condolences.
Former GoogleCEOEric Schmidt directly calls Sam Altman a hero, credited with transforming OpenAI from scratch to an extraordinary valuation of $90 billion. Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky also joined in the praise of Sam Altman, calling him one of the best founders of this generation.
At an impromptu all-hands meeting after the dismissal of Sam Altman, faced with the accusation of "coup", Ilya's response was allegedly, "You can say that" "But I don't agree", he believed "It is the Board’s responsibility to fulfill its nonprofit mission, which is to ensureOpenAIBuilding AGI that benefits all humanity".
In an internal memo to employees, interim CEO Mira Murati mentioned "our mission and ability to jointly develop safe and beneficial AGI." She said OpenAI has three pillars, including "maximizing our research programs, our safety and alignment efforts - particularly our ability to predict and risk science - and sharing our technology with the world in a way that benefits everyone."
Ilya Sutskever, Sam Altman, MiraMurati, Greg Brockman | Wired
OpenAI was founded in 2015 and was positioned as a non-profit organization from the beginning. However, in 2019, OpenAI reorganized and Sam Altman became OpenAI CEO, and he helped create a for-profit subsidiary called OpenAILP to raise capital from outside investors such as Microsoft for training the AI. OpenAI itself remains a non-profit organization governed by a board of directors.
Altman played a key role in raising capital, including $10 billion from Microsoft. Although OpenAI sets a profit cap for investors, OpenAI's valuation has now reached $85 billion, and Sam Altman recently told employees that OpenAI is generating $1.3 billion in annualized revenue.
On the other hand, concerns about AI security and the commercialization of OpenAI have also divided OpenAI's internal management. At onceAt the end of 2020, a group of OpenAI employees left the company and founded the AI company Anthropic, this company uses safety as its selling point, and the founder directly stated that he left because he was dissatisfied with OpenAI's commercialization and strategy.
Ilya has also been worried about the dangers of powerful AGI in the coming years. Previously, in an OpenAI blog post, he wrote that "enormous superintelligence forces could be very dangerous and could lead to human disempowerment or even human extinction."
After firing Sam Altman, the OpenAI board continued in a statement, "OpenAI aims to advance our mission: ensuring that artificial intelligence benefits all humanity. The Board remains fully committed to serving this mission. "
Where is the "dishonesty"?
In addition to the "security" issue, the OpenAI board of directors said that SamAltman was "not candid". Judging from the existing information, there are also questions about whether SamAltman concealed his expenditure.
November 15,Just two days before Sam Altman was fired, OpenAI controversially announced that it would stop new sign-ups for ChatGPTPlus, the $20-per-month premium version.. This highlights the issue of cost and revenue to a certain extent.
Inside sources say OpenAI is losing money on every ChatGPTPlus user and needs time to build up server capacity.
This overlapped so much with the firing of Sam Altman that some people speculated thatDid Sam Altman misrepresent financial data, user numbers or cloud computing costs to the board? Are expenses higher than expected?? Or is he blocking the board's access to relevant information?
Another confirmed connection is that the board of directors also dismissed OpenAI co-founder and chief technology officer Greg Brockman from his position as chairman because Greg may be concerned about the technical costs of running the OpenAI system. He is one of the most influential people at the startup, with a say in everything from product decisions to setting direction for the engineering team. If spending goes off the rails, two managers could be complicit.
In addition, SamAltman’s resignation also involves some unusual factors. It is reported that SamAltman plans to use OpenAI technology for Worldcoin, which also raises some concerns about moral hazard.
Sam Altman and Satya made a little joke at the OpenAI Developer Conference｜OpenAI
As the "funder" of OpenAI, what is Microsoft's attitude? According to people familiar with the matter,Microsoft leadership only received 5 to 10 minutes of advance notice from OpenAI before news of Sam Altman’s firing became public. OpenAI interim CEO Mira Murati told employees at a company-wide meeting on Friday that their relationship with Microsoft remains stable.
Not long ago, Microsoft briefly blocked employees from accessing ChatGPT on company devices on November 9 and warned employees that the reason given was security concerns.
It was only 10 days before the OpenAI Developer Conference. At that time, Sam Altman was still chatting and laughing with Microsoft executives, and even participated in his regular meeting with Microsoft infrastructure executives on the 15th.
"Today has been a strange experience in many ways." Sam Altman admitted on X's post.
He once said that the ultimate goal of GPT-5 is to create a super AI equivalent to the human brain, but have security issues arise in the development of AI, which ultimately led to this rapid internal "coup"?
After being kicked out of OpenAI, what will be next for Sam Altman?
Timeline of events when OpenAI fired Sam Altman:
November 6, 2023
OpenAI held a developer conference and launched the "custom ChatGPT" function.
November 9, 2023
Microsoft issued a warning asking its employees to stop using ChatGPT due to security concerns.
November 15, 2023
OpenAI has suspended the registration of ChatGPTPlus. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced at the Ignite conference that all OpenAI innovations will be used on Microsoft's Azure cloud services.
November 16, 2023
SamAltman received a text message from llya informing him to talk at noon on Friday.
November 17, 2023
OpenAI's board of directors suddenly announced that co-founder and CEO Sam Altman will leave immediately. The board concluded after a review that Altman was less than candid in his communications with the board and hampered the board's ability to carry out its responsibilities. The board of directors has lost confidence in his continued leadership of OpenAI. On the same day, Altman issued a statement about his departure on the X platform (formerly Twitter).
Later on November 17, 2023
OpenAI co-founder and former chairman of the board Greg Brockman announced that he will also be leaving the company. This comes after the board asked Brockman to step down as board chairman but retain his role in the company.
November 17, 2023
OpenAI appoints Mira Murati, the company's chief technology officer, as interim CEO.