Over the weekend, the news of the removal of OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman created quite a stir on the internet. Altman, who headed ChatGPT’s parent company OpenAI, was fired via a strongly worded letter straight from the board at OpenAI. The removal and replacement were so quick that it left a lot of questions hanging. Why was Altman fired in the first place? Let’s try to find out.
The removal of Sam Altman sent shock waves across the tech industry as he was not only the face of OpenAI but was also considered a visionary. With OpenAI and its massive reach with ChatGPT, Altman was rightly called the top guy in the AI world. Then what happened? On the face of it, it seems like there have been some disagreements between the board and Altman.
OpenAI shared this news through their blog post, which read, “Mr Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.”
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Now this message does not reveal the real reason behind his firing but the tone of the message sure shows that the board was really upset with him. Not just Altman, co-founder Greg Brockman was also fired, apparently for backing Altman.
But there are a lot of rumours circulating on the internet that suggest that OpenAI and Altman had a disagreement over security and profits.
A well-sourced Silicon Valley journalist, Kara Swisher said, “As I understand it, it was a “misalignment” of the profit versus nonprofit adherents at the company. The developer day was an issue,” via Twitter.
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The chatter on the internet suggests that when OpenAI was initially founded, it was supposed to be a non-profit but Altman, on the other hand, wanted a for-profit business model. Secondly, speaking of security, people are talking about how Altman was pushing OpenAI and ChatGPT too fast and aggressively. This could also mean a compromise on the safety of ChatGPT and other products.
For the time being, Altman has been replaced by Mira Murati as the interim CEO.