Recently, Mira Murati, the last woman among OpenAI’s four co-founders, also announced her departure. At this point, only Sam Altman remains of the original four founders. It makes one wonder what exactly is going on inside OpenAI that has led to this state of disintegration, with even internal employees coming forward to say that they now want toStaying at OpenAI and continuing to work here is really tough.。
OpenAI Internal Turmoil: Foreign Media Analyzes the Reasons Behind the Executive Departure Wave
I wonder if everyone still remembers the comeback drama OpenAI CEO Sam Altman staged last November. Sam suddenly announced his departure, then announced his return to OpenAI, making many people feel they had watched a farce. But this also proved that the conflicts within OpenAI’s senior management are quite serious.
Shortly after Sam Altman returned, many OpenAI executives resigned one after another. In May this year, OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever announced his departure, followed by the resignation of Jan Leike, one of OpenAI’s top research scientists.
After almost a decade, I have made the decision to leave OpenAI. The company’s trajectory has been nothing short of miraculous, and I’m confident that OpenAI will build AGI that is both safe and beneficial under the leadership of @sama, @gdb, @miramurati and now, under the…
— Ilya Sutskever (@ilyasut) May 14, 2024
In August this year, OpenAI’s co-founderAnd current president Greg Brockman also announced that he would be on leave until the end of this year. Immediately after, one of OpenAI’s co-founders, John Schulman, also announced that he was leaving OpenAI to join rival company Anthropic.
I shared the following note with my OpenAI colleagues today:
I’ve made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI. This choice stems from my desire to deepen my focus on AI alignment, and to start a new chapter of my career where I can return to hands-on technical work. I’ve decided…
— John Schulman (@johnschulman2) August 6, 2024
Next, on September 25, OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew, and VP of Research Barrett Zoff will also be leaving OpenAI.
I shared the following note with the OpenAI team today. pic.twitter.com/nsZ4khI06P
— Mira Murati (@miramurati) September 25, 2024
The situation of OpenAI’s initial co-founders all gradually leaving one by one has also led netizens to create many memes. For example, in the original group photo of Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, and Mira Murati, as everyone departed, only Sam Altman remained in the end. Even Elon Musk came out to mock, sayingSam Altman is Little Finger“It seems to be insinuating that Altman’s methods of operation are sinister.”
Sam Altman is Little Finger https://t.co/3esBWapV1x
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 26, 2024
According toThe Wall Street JournalAccording to reports, there may be three reasons why OpenAI has ended up in its current situation. First, the departure of a large number of executives and professional researchers. Since May this year, more than 20 OpenAI researchers and executives have left, including co-founders such as Ilya Sutskever and John Schulman. In addition to the exodus of researchers and executives, after Sam Altman returned, he brought in substantial funding from supporters such as Microsoft, Apple, NVIDIA, and others, leading many long-time OpenAI employees to say that OpenAI’s focus is no longer purely on research.
Second, according to foreign media reports, OpenAI rushed to launch its new AI model GPT-4o before Google’s annual developer conference in order to steal Google’s thunder. This May, in order to launch GPT-4o before Google’s annual developer conference, OpenAI staff were forced to conduct a more comprehensive safety review of GPT-4o within nine days. Although the safety team worked 20 hours a day, GPT-4o ultimately went live without passing full safety tests. Later, it was also found that GPT-4o exceeded internal standards in “persuasion,” allowing GPT-4o to persuade people to change their beliefs and engage in dangerous and illegal behaviors. This also frustrated some OpenAI employees, because if the company hadn’t tried to launch GPT-4o before Google’s annual developer conference, they would have had more time to resolve issues before they occurred. OpenAI’s rush to succeed is also why foreign media speculate that technical leaders like Mira Murati chose to leave OpenAI.
Third, besides OpenAI’s haste for success and high-level departures, what also frustrates internal employees is OpenAI’s co-founder.There’s also the issue of current president Greg Brockman’s management style. As a co-founder of OpenAI, Greg Brockman is indispensable to the company—when OpenAI was founded in 2015, it was actually run out of Greg Brockman’s home. However, as OpenAI has grown, Greg Brockman’s management style has begun to make employees tense. Employees say Greg Brockman gets involved in whatever projects he wants, and will even change projects at the last minute. For years, employees wanted Sam Altman to rein in Greg Brockman’s management style, and finally in August of this year, Greg Brockman was willing to budge, announcing he would take a break until the end of the year to give employees some room to breathe.
I’m taking a sabbatical through end of year. First time to relax since co-founding OpenAI 9 years ago. The mission is far from complete; we still have a safe AGI to build.
— Greg Brockman (@gdb) August 6, 2024
Over the past few years, OpenAI has gradually transformed from a nonprofit organization into a for-profit company. Not only has this drawn outside attention, but it has also caused continual turmoil within OpenAI itself. Several executives and researchers have left one after another, and even employees still at OpenAI have said that staying there to continue working was a difficult decision they made.
Hi everybody, today I have made the difficult decision to stay at OpenAI and continue shipping
— Trevor Creech (@zedlander) September 26, 2024
Most of OpenAI’s co-founders have already left by now, leaving essentially just Sam Altman. Everyone is watching to see how Altman will lead OpenAI amid internal turmoil and eager expectations from external investors. OpenAI originally emphasized that it was a non-profit organization with a mission to advance safe and beneficial AI technology, but now it has announced a transition to a for-profit company—one has to wonder if that’s a bit embarrassing. And how OpenAI will develop in the future is certainly worth keeping an eye on.
Although OpenAI is currently facing a stream of internal issues, everyone can still experience what OpenAI has to offer. A few days ago, ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode was officially rolled out to ChatGPT Plus and Team users. If you’re interested, you can read the article below for more details:
Source: KOCPC Chinese