The OpenAI discovery that allegedly could threaten humanity appears to have caused Altman’s firing
It seems that the drama in the OpenAI company, which involved the dismissal of its CEO, and then his return to the same position, is not over. Namely, the alleged OpenAI discovery made by researchers in the company was the cause of Altman's dismissal, because it is something that “could endanger humanity”, writes AndroidAuthority.
The researchers alerted the company's board of directors at the time to the discovery, which reportedly fired Altman on Friday. In the meantime, that board was partially replaced, and a new one was appointed that returned Altman to the position of executive director.
The letter that the researchers sent to the now-former board contained a “scary” OpenAI discovery, or a warning about artificial intelligence. This warning was allegedly signed by Mira Murati, the very person who was acting CEO during the past weekend.
What is even more strange is that Murati was one of the signatories of the letter from the company's employees who threatened to resign and move to Microsoft, if Altman is not reinstated. The company refused to comment on these allegations, and allegedly subsequently admitted to employees in an internal statement that there was a project called Q* (Q-star), but also forwarded to them a warning letter that the researchers had previously sent to the company's former board of directors.
Shutterstock / MeSSrroSome of the employees believe that the Q* project is actually a breakthrough in the company's search for so-called artificial general intelligence (AGI – artificial general intelligence). AGI is an autonomous system that outperforms humans in most economically relevant tasks. Reportedly, the new AI model Q* has solved certain mathematical problems, which makes the researchers optimistic about their future success in this field.
However, the researcher's letter to the previous committee highlighted the power, but also the potential danger, of artificial intelligence. They also pointed to the work of a team of AI scientists, which were formed by merging the “Code Gen” and “Math Gen” teams at the OpenAI company. It was this team that researched how to optimize existing AI models to improve their reasoning and eventually published a scientific paper about it.
Because of all these events, Sam Altman, who by the way returned to the company after being fired and got a job at Microsoft, agreed to an internal investigation into the alleged behavior that caused a whole chain of events in OpenAI. The public reason for his dismissal was that he had not been “consistently honest” with board members.
However, the board did not explain in detail the reasons for making such a decision neither to the public, nor to investors or even to the acting CEO. Now we see that his firing hides the supposed OpenAI discovery, that is, a mystery that could potentially threaten the world, but the question is whether it will ever really be revealed publicly, especially considering that the members of the previous board of directors have mostly been replaced.