Former OpenAI board member explains why CEO Sam Altman was fired

"Are You a CEO, Director, or Founder interested in a Feature Interview?"

All Interviews are 100% FREE of Charge

Helen Tonner, a former OpenAI director who helped force CEO Sam Altman’s ouster in November, broke her silence in a podcast published Tuesday, discussing the events at the company that led to Altman’s firing.

One example she gave was that when OpenAI released ChatGPT in November 2022, the board was not informed in advance, but instead found out about it on Twitter. Toner also said that Altman did not tell the board that he had a startup fund for OpenAI.

Altman was named CEO less than a week after being fired, but Toner’s comments were the first to reveal the decision.

“This is a not-for-profit board, established with the express purpose of ensuring that the company’s public interest mission takes precedence over profits, investor interests or anything else,” Toner said.TED AI Show“Podcast.”

“But for years Sam concealed information, misrepresented what was going on at the company and, in some cases, outright lied to the board, making it extremely difficult for the board to actually do its job,” she said.

Toner said Altman repeatedly provided the board with “inaccurate information about the few formal safety measures the company actually had in place.”

“In every individual case, Sam was able to come up with some kind of plausible explanation for why it was no big deal or that it was misunderstood or whatever,” Tonner said. “But ultimately, after years of this going on, all four of us who fired Sam came to the conclusion that we couldn’t believe what Sam was saying. As a board, that’s a totally unworkable position to take, especially since the board is supposed to provide independent oversight for the company, not just help the CEO raise more money.”

Toner said the board has been working to remedy the problem, saying it met with the two executives in October, a month before his firing, to share their stories with Altman, including screenshots and transcripts of problematic interactions and false statements that they had previously been reluctant to share.

“Suddenly, they started telling us they couldn’t trust him, and the toxic atmosphere he was creating,” Toner said. “They used the words ’emotional abuse,’ they said they didn’t think he was the right person to lead AGI, and they didn’t believe he could or would change.”

Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is a broad term that refers to a type of artificial intelligence that exceeds human capabilities in a range of cognitive tasks.

An OpenAI spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

Earlier this month, OpenAI disbanded a year after announcing a team focused on the long-term risks of AI. The news came days after both OpenAI co-founders Ilya Sutskever and Jan Reicke announced their departures from the Microsoft-backed startup. Reicke, who has since announced he will be joining AI competitor Anthropic, wrote on Friday that OpenAI’s “safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to flashy products.”

Toner’s comments and high-profile departures come in the wake of a leadership crisis last year.

In November, OpenAI’s board of directors conducted a “deliberative process” and fired Altman, finding that he had “consistently been insufficient in his communications with the board, impeding the board’s ability to hold itself accountable.”

“The Board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI,” the statement said.

The Wall Street Journal Other media reported that while Sutskever focused on ensuring that AI would not harm humans, others, including Altman, were instead keen to promote the delivery of new technologies.

Altman’s firing sparked resignations and threats of resignation, including an open letter signed by nearly all of OpenAI’s employees, and an uproar from investors, including Microsoft. Within a week, Altman was reinstated, and directors Tonner and Tasha McCauley, who voted to remove Altman, resigned. Sutskever relinquished her position on the board and remained on staff until announcing her departure on May 14. Adam D’Angelo, who also voted to remove Altman, remains on the board.

In March, OpenAI announced a new board of directors that included Altman and the results of an internal investigation by law firm WilmerHale into the events that led to Altman’s firing.

OpenAI did not release the WilmerHale report but summarized its findings.

“The investigation concluded that there was a significant breakdown in trust between the prior board and Sam and Greg,” OpenAI board chairman Bret Taylor said at the time, referring to president and co-founder Greg Brockman. The investigation also “concluded that the board acted in good faith.” [and] “We didn’t anticipate some of the instability that followed,” Taylor added.