OpenAI has confirmed the disbanding of its team dedicated to mitigating the long-term dangers of highly advanced artificial intelligence.
The dissolution of the “superalignment” group began weeks ago, with its members being integrated into other projects and research initiatives, according to the San Francisco-based company.
This week, company co-founder Ilya Sutskever and team co-leader Jan Leike announced their departures from the maker of ChatGPT. The dismantling of this team, which was focused on keeping sophisticated AI under control, comes amid growing regulatory scrutiny and increasing fears about the potential dangers of advanced AI.
“OpenAI must become a safety-first AGI (artificial general intelligence) company,” Leike wrote on Friday in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. He urged all OpenAI employees to “act with the gravitas” appropriate for the significance of their work.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded to Leike’s post with his own, thanking him for his contributions and expressing sadness at his departure. “He’s right we have a lot more to do,” Altman said. “We are committed to doing it.” Altman promised further updates on the matter in the coming days.
Sutskever, who served as OpenAI’s chief scientist, also posted on X, reflecting on his nearly decade-long tenure at the company. He described OpenAI’s progress as “nothing short of miraculous” and expressed confidence that the company will build AGI that is both safe and beneficial.
Sutskever was part of the board that controversially voted to remove Altman as CEO in November last year, a decision that was quickly reversed after a backlash from staff and investors.
Earlier this week, OpenAI released a new, more advanced, and human-like version of the AI technology behind ChatGPT, making it freely available to all users. “It feels like AI from the movies,” Altman said in a blog post, citing the character voiced by Scarlett Johansson in the movie “Her” as an inspiration for future AI interactions.
During a talk at a TED AI summit in San Francisco late last year, Sutskever predicted that “digital brains will become as good and even better than our own,” emphasizing that AGI will significantly impact every area of life.
