One longstanding issue that has divided the company was Altman’s drive to turn OpenAI, which began as a non-profit organisation, into a successful business and how quickly he wanted the company to crank out products and sign up customers. That ran headlong into board member concerns over the safety of artificial intelligence tools capable of generating text, images and even computer code with minimal prompting.
Until Friday, the company’s board can include Altman, Brockman and Sutskever, as well as Adam D’Angelo, CEO, Quora Inc., Tasha McCauley, a tech entrepreneur and Helen Toner, director of strategy, Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, among others.
A deadline has been set for 5 pm (San Francisco) for the board to accede to the demands of Altman and his supporters. The board is expected to have issued a statement absolving him of wrongdoing. However, giving in could leave board members vulnerable from a legal perspective, this person added.
Furthermore, another possible addition is an executive from Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft but it’s unclear whether the software giant can or will take a board seat due to regulatory concerns.
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