Why Are OpenAI's Most Prominent Employees Leaving?

OpenAI keeps losing top talent, suggesting considerable inner turmoil at the ChatGPT maker.

Cofounder John Schulman announced he'd left the company this week to join rival AI company Anthropic, while president Greg Brockman is taking a leave of absence. VP of consumer product Peter Deng has also quit, indicating major shifts in OpenAI's upper ranks.

The Sam Altman-led company has made its core mission to realize safe artificial general intelligence, the still entirely hypothetical point at which point AI can keep up with humans across a wide variety of intellectual tasks.

But how far the company is from doing just that remains a heavily debated subject, with critics pointing out that OpenAI is shoring up billions of dollars in investment by making empty promises — an "AI bubble" that may be set to burst.

Could the latest departures show that the venture is struggling to fulfill its long-term vision, let alone turn a profit from generative AI?

Critics say OpenAI's brain drain problem could be the canary in the coal mine.

"Calling it," leading AI skeptic Gary Marcus tweeted. "August 2024 will be known as the month in which the Generative AI bubble burst."

"The three dramatic OpenAI departures — which would be inconceivable if AGI or even just major profitability were close — will be the last straw," he added. "Investors will lose confidence, valuations will fall."

Other critics questioned OpenAI's repeated claims that AGI is right around the corner.

"If OpenAI is right on the verge of AGI, why do prominent people keep leaving?" AI developer Benjamin de Kraker tweeted.

The three recent departures are already adding to a considerable tally of talent that has left OpenAI. In May, former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who once led OpenAI's "Superalignment" AI safety team, exited. Shortly after, the company dissolved the team in its entirety, leading to questions regarding the company's commitment to developing ways to keep rogue AI at bay.

Last month, former employee and former Superalignment team member William Saunders revealed that he had quit the company after realizing that it was pursuing profit at the cost of safety.

"I really didn't want to end up working for the Titanic of AI, and so that's why I resigned," he told YouTuber Alex Kantrowitz at the time.

At this point, we can only speculate as to why so much top brass is leaving the company. Have they lost confidence in OpenAI's ability to fulfill its promise of realizing AGI — or are they growing concerned that OpenAI is developing the AI equivalent of Pandora's Box?

In the case of Brockman, he may simply be looking for a way to get some much-needed rest.

"First time to relax since co-founding OpenAI nine years ago," he tweeted. "The mission is far from complete; we still have a safe AGI to build."

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