WASHINGTON (AFP) – OpenAI, the company that launched ChatGPT a year ago, said on Friday it had dismissed CEO Sam Altman in a shock firing of a central figure in the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution.
Altman became a tech world sensation with the release nearly a year ago of ChatGPT, an AI chatbot with unprecedented capabilities, churning out human-level content like poems or artwork in just seconds.
His dismissal caught the tech world by surprise, with rumours rife on social media as to the cause of the sudden sacking.
A statement about the firing by OpenAI referred to its stated mission of making sure AI benefits everyone, and said that new leadership is needed for the company to move forward.
Fellow OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman was pushed from the company’s board in the shakeup and put out late in the day that he quit.
“I’m super proud of what we’ve built… but based on today’s news, I quit,” Brockman said in a post at X, formerly known as Twitter.
“I continue to believe in the mission of creating safe AGI (artificial general intelligence) that benefits all of humanity.”
Analysts scrambled to interpret the shakeup, and the sacking of 38-year-old Altman, a Stanford University dropout, entrepreneur and computer coder.
“It sounded as though there were some ethical concerns which pushed the board to do something,” said Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi.
“If he is being ousted because of ethical concerns, that is only going to be good for the company.”
OpenAI’s board said that Altman’s departure followed a thorough review that found “he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities”.
“The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI,” it concluded.
In a post on X, Altman said he “loved my time at OpenAI”.
“It was transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit.”
He promised “more to say about what’s next later”.
The launch of ChatGPT ignited a race in AI – hailed as the next big chapter in technology – with contenders including tech giants Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta.
Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and has woven the company’s technology into its offerings, including Bing.
