A former OpenAI leader says security has “taken a backseat to shiny products” at the AI ​​company

A former OpenAI leader who resigned from the company earlier this week said Friday that security “has taken a backseat to the shiny products” at the influential artificial intelligence company.

Jan Leike, who ran OpenAI’s “Super Alignment” team alongside a company co-founder who also resigned this week, wrote in a series of posts on social media platform X that he joined the San Francisco-based company because he thought it would be the best place to do AI research.

“However, I have disagreed with OpenAI leadership on the company’s top priorities for some time, until we finally reached a breaking point,” wrote Leike, whose last day was Thursday.

An AI researcher by training, Leike said he believes there should be more focus on preparing for the next generation of AI models, including on issues such as security and analyzing the social impacts of such technologies. He said that building “machines smarter than humans is an inherently dangerous endeavor” and that the company “is taking on an enormous responsibility on behalf of all humanity.”

“OpenAI must become a security-first AGI company,” Leike wrote using the shortened version of general artificial intelligencea futuristic vision of machines that are as intelligent as humans or that can at least do many things as well as people.

Leike’s resignation came after OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever said on Tuesday that he was leaving the company after almost a decade. Sutskever was one of four council members last fall who voted in favor oust CEO Sam Altman – just stops quickly restore it. It was Sutskever who told Altman last November that he was being fired, but he later said he regretted doing it.

Sutskever said he is working on a new project that is meaningful to him, without offering additional details. It will be replaced by Jakub Pachocki as chief scientist. Altman called Pachocki “also easily one of the greatest minds of our generation” and said he is “very confident that he will lead us to make rapid and sure progress toward our mission of ensuring that AGI benefits everyone.”

On Monday, OpenAI showed off the latest update to its artificial intelligence model, which can mimic human cadences in its verbal responses and can even attempt to detect people’s moods.

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The Associated Press and OpenAI a licensing and technology agreement which allows OpenAI access to part of the AP text files.