OpenAI has received a lot of criticism in the last two weeks.
The company apparently had disproportionately strict rules for employees leaving the company. For example, they are not allowed to criticize the company or else lose their valuable shares. CEO Sam Altman claims to have been unaware of this and has apologized. However, internal documents show that he signed and approved the contracts himself.
In addition, OpenAI has significant problems with the team that is supposed to deal with the long-term risks of AI. OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever was one of the leaders of this group and has already left the company. His colleague Jan Leike followed him shortly after, and is now at rival Anthropic, creator of the Claude chatbot. Anthropic itself is a company founded by former OpenAI employees that focuses on the careful development of AI. After his departure, Jan Leike criticized OpenAI for focusing on “shiny products” rather than AI safety.
And then there was the new voice “Sky” for OpenAI’s chatbot, which caused quite a stir – and comparisons to the movie “Her”. Sam Altman himself provoked the comparison with a tweet. Now we have learned: OpenAI had asked actress Scarlett Johansson to use her voice for the chatbot – just like in the movie. She declined. OpenAI apparently decided to use an imitation instead, which would most likely not hold up in court in the US. OpenAI eventually removed “Sky”.
Last but not least, it seems that Sam Altman lied to the OpenAI board more than once.