Rebellion at OpenAI: Staff Members Ready for Mass Departure

OpenAI faces mass exodus of staff members over internal conflicts

Hundreds of OpenAI employees have vowed to leave the premier artificial intelligence business and join Microsoft on November 20.

They would be following in the footsteps of OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman, who announced the formation of an AI subsidiary at Microsoft following his surprise dismissal from the business whose ChatGPT chatbot has led the fast growth of artificial intelligence technology.

Some of OpenAI's most senior employees threatened to leave the firm in a letter if the board was not changed.

"Your actions have demonstrated that you are incapable of overseeing OpenAI," according to the letter, which was originally seen by Wired.

Ilya Sutskever, the company's top scientist and a member of the four-person board that decided to remove Mr. Altman, was among the signers.

It also included senior executive Mira Murati, who was nominated to replace Mr Altman as CEO after he was fired on November 17 but was demoted the following weekend.

"Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAI employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join," according to the letter.

According to reports, up to 500 of OpenAI's 770 workers signed the letter.

Despite pressure from Microsoft and other key investors, OpenAI has hired Emmett Shear, a former CEO of Amazon's streaming site Twitch, as its new CEO.

Mr Altman was fired by the startup's board on Friday, expressing fears that he was discounting the hazards of its technology and steering the firm away from its declared objective — charges his replacement has refuted.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on X that Mr Altman "will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team," with OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and other colleagues.

Mr Altman rose to prominence last year with the debut of ChatGPT, which sparked a race to improve AI research and development, as well as billions of dollars being spent in the area.

His dismissal prompted numerous more high-profile exits from the corporation, as well as a reported investor effort to rehire him.

"We're going to build something new, and it'll be incredible." Mr Brockman tagged former director of research Jakub Pachocki, AI risk evaluation head Aleksander Madry, and longstanding researcher Szymon Sidor in his statement.

However, in a statement emailed to workers on Sunday night, OpenAI stated that "Sam's behaviour and lack of transparency... undermined the board's ability to effectively supervise the company," according to the New York Times.

On November 20, Mr Shear acknowledged his position as OpenAI's temporary CEO in a post on X, while also dismissing allegations that Mr Altman had been sacked due to safety concerns over the usage of AI technology.

"Today, I received a phone call inviting me to consider a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: to serve as interim CEO of @OpenAI." "I accepted after consulting with my family and reflecting on it for only a few hours," he wrote.

"Before accepting the position, I investigated the reasons for the change." The board did not fire Sam because of a dispute about safety; their motivation was entirely different."

"It's clear that the process and communications around Sam's removal have been handled very badly, which has seriously damaged our trust," he said.

Global tech behemoth Microsoft has spent over $10 billion on OpenAI and has integrated the AI pioneer's technology into its products.

In his statement, Microsoft's Mr. Nadella stated, "We look forward to getting to know Emmett Shear and OAI's new leadership team and working with them."

"We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap," he went on to say.

To create its own AI models, OpenAI is competing with companies such as Google and Meta, as well as start-ups such as Anthropic and Stability AI.

ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms are trained on massive quantities of data to answer queries, even complicated ones, in human-like language.

They may also be used to create and alter images.

However, the technology has prompted concerns about the perils of its abuse, which range from blackmailing individuals with "deepfake" photographs to image modification and destructive misinformation.