According to media reports citing sources, the future of artificial intelligence (AI) research company OpenAI remains unclear. Although almost all OpenAI employees threatened to resign and asked the company's board of directors to step down, the OpenAI board of directors remained unmoved. As of Monday local time, 747 OpenAI employees (the company has a total of 770 employees) have signed a joint letter demanding that the company's board of directors resign and restore the positions of the two co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, otherwise they will join Microsoft.
Over the weekend, the OpenAI board of directors removed Altman and company president Brockman from the board of directors, and removed Altman from his position as CEO. Although Brockman retained his position as president, he chose to resign and join Altman.
Multiple people familiar with the matter revealed that OpenAI’s investors are exploring legal measures to force the board of directors to reverse its previous decision. A person at a venture fund with a stake in OpenAI said legal action could be taken as soon as tomorrow, but did not specify what form it would take.
However, a person with direct knowledge of the negotiations revealed that as of Monday evening local time, the OpenAI board of directors remained tough and prepared to test employees' willingness to resign.
The OpenAI board of directors originally had six members. After Altman and Brockman left, co-founder and chief scientific officer Ilya Sutskever and three other external independent directors remained, including Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, former GeoSimSystems CEO Tasha McCauley, and Georgetown University Center for Security and Emerging Technology Strategy Director Helen Toner.
Sutskvi publicly apologized on social media on Monday, regretting his role in Altman's ouster. Sutskvi also signed a letter of resignation against the OpenAI board of directors, but he did not indicate whether he would withdraw from the board of directors.
According to people familiar with the matter, Sutskwe came under tremendous pressure from OpenAI employees regarding Altman's dismissal last weekend, and employees asked him to change his position.