According to PANews, OpenAI's Chief Scientist, Ilya Sutskever, and one of the leaders of the Super Alignment Team, Jan Leike, have announced their resignations. OpenAI confirmed on the same day that the 'Super Intelligence Alignment Team', led by Sutskever and Leike, has been disbanded.
In a series of 13 tweets on May 18, Leike revealed the real reasons behind his departure and shared more inside information. He cited insufficient computational resources and a lack of emphasis on safety by OpenAI as the main reasons. Leike stated that more resources and energy should be invested in preparing for the new generation of AI models, but the current development path cannot smoothly achieve this goal. His team faced significant challenges in the past few months, sometimes struggling to obtain enough computational resources.
Leike also emphasized that creating machines that surpass human intelligence is full of risks. While OpenAI is taking on this responsibility, the safety culture and processes have been marginalized in the pursuit of product development. He stressed that OpenAI must transform into a company that prioritizes safety.
In response to Leike's revelations, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, expressed his gratitude for Leike's contributions to OpenAI in AI super alignment research and safety culture. He regretted Leike's departure and acknowledged that there is still much work to be done. Altman committed to advancing these tasks and promised to write a more detailed article discussing the issue in the coming days.
TechCrunch reported on May 18 that OpenAI's decision to abandon safety research and launch new products like GPT-4o led to the resignation of the two leaders of the 'Super Alignment' team. It remains unclear when or if the tech industry will achieve the necessary breakthroughs to create artificial intelligence capable of performing any task a human can do. However, the dissolution of the 'Super Alignment' team seems to confirm that OpenAI's leadership, especially Altman, prioritizes products over safety measures.
On May 19, Altman responded to rumors about 'gagging' resignation clauses on social media. He stated that the company has never reclaimed anyone's vested equity, even if they did not sign a resignation agreement or agree to a non-disparagement agreement.