Firing Sam Altman, OpenAI staff calls for board resignation

2023-11-20 17:16:13Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Firing Sam Altman, OpenAI staff calls for board resignation
Sam Altman

OpenAI staff have called on the company's board to resign following the shock firing of former chief executive Sam Altman.

In a letter, they question the board's competence and accuse it of undermining the firm's work. Senior staff are among the many signatories.

The firing of Altman on Friday, one of the leading figures in artificial intelligence (AI), shocked the tech world.

One of the board members involved in his firing, OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, has told X that he made a mistake.

"I now deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and will do everything I can to reunite the company," he posted.

Mr. Sutskever has signed the letter demanding that the board he sits on be fired.

In a fast-moving and chaotic series of events over the weekend, it appeared briefly that Mr. Altman might get his job back, only for it to be announced that he was joining Microsoft, a major funder of OpenAI.

Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that Mr Altman would lead "a new cutting-edge AI research team".

Meanwhile, former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear will become OpenAI's new interim chief.

Writing in X, he called the job a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

But he added that the way Altman was fired was "very badly handled" and "seriously damaged our trust".

The sacking of such a high-profile figure surprised industry watchers and angered many at the company he ran, culminating in board members calling for their resignation.


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