Ex-OpenAI board member reveals why Sam Altman was briefly ousted as CEO
NY Post
A former OpenAI board member provided the most detailed account yet about Sam Altman’s shocking removal as CEO last November – alleging in a new interview that Altman repeatedly lied to the board about everything from AI safety to the launch of ChatGPT.
Helen Toner – who left OpenAI as part of negotiations that paved the way for Altman’s return – revealed that the board only learned about ChatGPT’s launch after it had already occurred.
“When ChatGPT came out, November 2022, the board was not informed in advance about that,” Toner told host Bilawal Sidhu on “The TED AI Show” in an episode airing Tuesday. “We learned about ChatGPT on Twitter.”
“On multiple occasions, he gave us inaccurate information about the small number of formal safety processes that the company did have in place, meaning that it was basically impossible for the board to know how well those safety processes were working or what might need to change,” Toner added.
Toner also revealed that Altman had failed to inform the board that he “owned the OpenAI Startup Fund, even though he was constantly claiming to be an independent board member with no financial interest in the company.”
“There’s more individual examples and for any individual case, Sam could always come up with some kind of innocuous sounding explanation of why it wasn’t a big deal or misinterpreted or whatever,” Toner said.
