Former OpenAI director says board learned about ChatGPT launch on Twitter

(Bloomberg) — Former OpenAI board member Helen Toner said the board only learned about the launch of the company’s ChatGPT chatbot in 2022 — and only learned about it on Twitter.

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In a podcast called The TED AI Show, Toner gave her most complete account yet of the events that led her and other board members to fire Sam Altman in November of last year. In the days following CEO Sam Altman’s sudden firing, employees threatened to quit, Altman was reinstated, and Toner and other directors left the board.

“When ChatGPT launched in November 2022, the board was not informed about it in advance,” Toner said on the podcast. “We learned about ChatGPT on Twitter.”

The company’s launch of ChatGPT was relatively quiet: OpenAI simply called the chatbot an artificial intelligence model that “interacts conversationally.” But in the days and weeks that followed, ChatGPT’s ability to generate human-looking text made it a huge success and helped pave the way for today’s AI boom.

OpenAI did not immediately provide comment. In a statement provided to the TED podcast, current OpenAI board chairman Bret Taylor said, “We are disappointed that Ms. Toner continues to revisit these issues.” He also said that an independent review of Altman’s dismissal “concluded that the board’s previous decision was not based on concerns related to product security, the pace of development, OpenAI’s finances, or its statements to investors, customers or development partners.” business”.

Taylor also said that “more than 95% of employees” have called for Altman’s reinstatement, and that the company remains focused on its “mission of ensuring AGI benefits all humanity.”

The board’s reasons for firing Altman have been the source of intense speculation in Silicon Valley. At the time, the board said only that Altman had not been “consistently candid” in his interactions with directors. In the months that followed, new details emerged about tensions between Altman, the board and some employees.

On the podcast, Toner also said that Altman did not disclose his involvement with the OpenAI seed fund. And she criticized his security leadership. “On several occasions, he gave us inaccurate information about the formal security processes the company had in place,” she said, “meaning it was basically impossible for the board to know how well those security processes were working or what that might be necessary. to change.”

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Toner said that after years of such events, “the four of us came to the conclusion that we simply couldn’t believe the things Sam was telling us.”

In an article in the Economist over the weekend, Toner and Tasha McCauley, another former director, set out their thinking, saying that OpenAI was not positioned to regulate itself and that governments should step in to ensure that powerful AI is developed with safety.

–With assistance from Rachel Metz.

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