TECH NEWS – Altman, who left OpenAI to join Microsoft, is under investigation by Elon Musk, owner of Twitter, which appears to be a sinking ship…

It was big news last weekend when Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, was ousted. Then came Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, who announced that Altman would lead the Redmond tech giant’s in-house artificial intelligence team. Then several OpenAI employees handed in their resignations and stood by Altman: If the board didn’t reinstate him, they would leave. Well, that didn’t happen, so many people left OpenAI (we wouldn’t be surprised if they went to Microsoft because of Altman).

Several ex-employees have reportedly written an open letter to this effect. According to them, they were misled by Altman because they supported him and his mercantile leanings: “We believe that a significant number of OpenAI employees were pushed out of the company to facilitate the transition to a for-profit model. This is evidenced by the fact that between January 2018 and July 2020, OpenAI’s employee turnover rate was on the order of 50%. Many of us, initially hopeful about OpenAI’s mission, chose to give Sam and Greg the benefit of the doubt. However, as their actions became increasingly troubling, those who dared to voice their concerns were silenced or pushed out.

This systematic silencing of dissent created an environment of fear and intimidation that effectively stifled any meaningful discussion of the ethical implications of OpenAI’s work. OpenAI’s governance structure, specifically designed by Sam and Greg, deliberately isolates employees from oversight of for-profit operations precisely because of their inherent conflicts of interest. This opaque structure allows Sam and Greg to operate with impunity, shielded from accountability,” the letter reads.

These alleged former OpenAI employees allege that Altman delayed reporting on several secret initiatives that ultimately failed to produce results on his accelerated timelines and were then fired. Those who opposed these policies were summarily dismissed as “bad cultural fits. He also authorized the snooping of key OpenAI employees (including its chief scientist, Ilya Sutskeve)r. They also pointed to Brockman’s “use of discriminatory language against a gender transitioning team member. The employee in question was later fired for poor performance. The letter asks the board to stand firm against Altman and Brockman; others are considering a lawsuit against the board for the arbitrary firing. Nadella agreed to let Altman return to his OpenAI role.

And finally, the punchline: the owner of Twitter (with another name to add to the list of non-advertisers; more on that in today’s news), which has lost a lot of advertisers due to anti-Semitism, Elon Musk, also wants an investigation into the matter, which is a bit ironic since he has an AI model (Grok)… oh, and in the meantime, Altman and Brockman returned to OpenAI!

Source: WCCFTech