The release of ChatGPT took the world by surprise in 2022 – and a former OpenAI board member says that was the case for the company’s board of directors as well.
On November 30, 2022, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted a link to the chatbot, writing: “today we launched ChatGPT. try talking to it here.” But Helen Toner said the board was not given notice of the publication and learned about it from Twitter, now X.
“For years Sam had made it really difficult for the board to do that job by withholding information, misrepresenting things that were going on in the company, in some cases outright lying to the board,” she said in an interview with Bilawal Sidhu on “The TED AI Show” that aired on Tuesday.
Toner said one example was the launch of ChatGPT, where “the board was not informed in advance”.
Last November, Altman was briefly ousted, with OpenAI’s board at the time saying a review found he was “not consistently candid in his communications with the board.”
OpenAI reinstated Altman as CEO less than a week later after facing internal and external pressure. Almost all of the company’s employees had threatened to quit after Altman was fired, and Microsoft said it would hire Altman to lead an AI team.
Toner resigned from her role as an OpenAI board member a week after Altman returned as CEO.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. OpenAI Chairman Bret Taylor said in a statement to the podcast, “We are disappointed that Ms. Toner continues to revisit these issues.”
Taylor added that an independent review of Altman’s firing “concluded that the previous board’s decision was not based on concerns about product security, the pace of development, OpenAI’s finances, or its statements to investors, customers or partners of business”.