The ousted leader of ChatGPT maker OpenAI is returning to the company that fired him late last week, the latest episode in a saga that has shocked the artificial intelligence industry.
San Francisco-based OpenAI said in a statement on Wednesday: “We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board” made of former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, former US treasury secretary Larry Summers and Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo.
In a statement on social media platform X, Mr Altman said he was looking forward to returning to OpenAI.
“I love OpenAI, and everything I’ve done over the past few days has been in service of keeping this team and its mission together,” he said.
“When I decided to join Microsoft on Sunday evening, it was clear that was the best path for me and the team.
“With the new board and with [Microsoft CEO] Satya [Nadella’s] support, I’m looking forward to returning to OpenAI, and building on our strong partnership with Microsoft.”
OpenAI’s previous board of directors, which included Mr D’Angelo, had refused to give specific reasons for why it fired Mr Altman on Friday, leading to a weekend of internal conflict at the company and growing outside pressure from the startup’s investors.
OpenAI on Monday named ex-Twitch boss Emmett Shear as its interim CEO, while Mr Altman moved to OpenAI’s major backer Microsoft, which has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and has rights to its technology.
Microsoft also hired another OpenAI co-founder and former president, Greg Brockman, who had quit in protest after Mr Altman’s removal. That emboldened a threatened exodus of nearly all of the startup’s 770 employees, who signed a letter calling for the board’s resignation and Mr Altman’s return.
Microsoft chief technology officer Kevin Scott put out a call to the startup’s employees on Tuesday, saying: “We have seen your petition and appreciate your desire potentially to join Sam Altman at Microsoft’s new AI Research Lab. Know that if needed, you have a role at Microsoft that matches your compensation and advances our collective mission.”
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also made clear in a series of interviews on Monday that he was still open to the possibility of Mr Altman returning to OpenAI, as long as the startup’s governance and board problems were solved.
“We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board,” Mr Nadella posted on X on Wednesday. “We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance.”
Co-founded by Mr Altman as a nonprofit with a mission to safely build so-called artificial general intelligence that outperforms humans and benefits humanity, OpenAI later became a for-profit business but one still run by its nonprofit board of directors. It is not clear yet if the board’s structure will change with its newly appointed members.
Mr Nadella said Mr Brockman, who was returning to OpenAI after being its board chairman until Mr Altman’s firing, would now have a key role to play in ensuring OpenAI “continues to thrive and build on its mission”.
As for OpenAI’s short-lived interim CEO Mr Shear, the second interim CEO in the days since Altman’s ouster, he posted on X that he was “deeply pleased by this result, after 72 very intense hours of work”.
“Coming into OpenAI, I wasn’t sure what the right path would be,” Mr Shear wrote.
“This was the pathway that maximized safety alongside doing right by all stakeholders involved. I’m glad to have been a part of the solution.”
ABC
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