OpenAI has experienced another round of significant departures, losing three key figures: co-founder Greg Brockman, who will take an extended leave to “relax and recharge”; product manager Peter Deng; and most notably, co-founder John Schulman.
Schulman’s departure has been a real blow to the company as it seeks to focus on aligning artificial intelligence (AI) and deepening practical technical work. Schulman will continue his efforts at Anthropic, a competitor of OpenAI.
A Shocking Departure
John Schulman, a driving force behind AI development at OpenAI, has chosen to leave the company to pursue his passion for AI alignment, ensuring that AI systems behave as expected. This shift in direction will take him to Anthropic, where he can focus more efforts on this critical field.
With Schulman’s departure, only three of the original eleven founders of OpenAI remain in the company: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman (on leave), and Wojciech Zaremba, along with co-founder Ilya Sutskever, who left the company in May to start Safe Superintelligence Inc.
A Context of Controversies
These departures do not occur in a vacuum. OpenAI has been under intense scrutiny following the departure of other key co-founders and leaders. Andrej Karpathy left the company in February, followed by Jan Leike in May, who led the super-alignment team before also joining Anthropic. Co-founder and key figure Ilya Sutskever also departed in May.
The departures of Leike and Sutskever were marked by concerns about the lack of focus on security, a concern that has echoed among several former employees who have criticized the insufficient security testing at OpenAI.
Criticism and Rumors
The recent exodus has intensified rumors and criticisms about OpenAI’s direction regarding security research and application in AI. Schulman, who led the “post-training” team focused on refining AI models for ChatGPT, has stated that his departure is not due to a lack of support at OpenAI. However, his departure leaves a significant gap in the company’s leadership and raises serious questions about OpenAI’s future focus on AI safety.
The Future of OpenAI
With the departure of key figures, OpenAI faces a crossroads. The company, which has been a pioneer in advanced artificial intelligence development, must now demonstrate its commitment to safety and ethics in the development of its technologies. The continuity and stability of OpenAI depend on its ability to retain and attract talent that shares these fundamental values.
The tech community is closely watching how OpenAI will respond to these challenges and whether it can maintain its position of leadership in such a dynamic and crucial field as artificial intelligence.