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| OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman was fired as chief executive on Friday |
Staff at OpenAI have called on the board of the artificial intelligence company to resign after the shock dismissal of former boss Sam Altman.
They cast doubt on the board's qualifications and charge it with undermining the firm's work in a letter.
They also call for the reinstatement of Mr. Altman.
However, Mr. Altman appears to want to stay at Microsoft, where he now works. He added that he and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella consider the success of OpenAI to be crucial.
"Satya and my top priority remains to ensure OpenAI continues to thrive," he wrote on Twitter.
"We are dedicated to giving our partners and clients complete operational continuity. This is highly feasible thanks to Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI."
The tech community was taken aback by the dismissal of a prominent figure in artificial intelligence (AI) on Friday.
Senior employees are among the hundreds of signatories to the letter who threaten to quit themselves if their demands are not fulfilled.
Additionally, they claim that Microsoft, OpenAI's largest backer, has given them assurances that all employees will have jobs if they wish to work for the company.
Mr. Nadella stated he was open to collaborating with OpenAI or the OpenAI staff members who visit Microsoft in a CNBC interview.
"At this juncture... it's abundantly evident that a change in the governance [at OpenAI] is necessary," he continued, announcing that the companies would be having discussions regarding this.
Engagement manager Evan Morikawa of OpenAI announced on X, formerly Twitter, that 743 of the 770 employees of the company had signed the letter.
Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist at OpenAI, is among the prominent individuals who signed the letter, despite being a member of the board that is currently facing criticism.
He acknowledged that he had erred in his writing on X.
"I now sincerely regret taking part in the board's activities. I never meant to cause harm to OpenAI. He wrote, "I love everything we've built together, and I will stop at nothing to bring the company back together."
Chaotic scenes
After a tumultuous and swift sequence of events over the weekend, it appeared for a brief moment that Mr. Altman would regain his position. However, it was later revealed that he was joining Microsoft, which has made billion-dollar investments in OpenAI in exchange for a 49% stake.
According to a post on X by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Mr. Altman will be in charge of "a new advanced AI research team".
"The mission continues" was Mr. Altman's response to the post announcing his new position, written prior to the letter's publication.
Later on, he said, "I'm really excited that we will all be working together in some capacity. one mission, one team."
In the interim, OpenAI's new leader will be Emmett Shear, the former CEO of Twitch.
He described the position as a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" in a piece for X.
However, he added, it was "handled very badly" and "seriously damaged our trust" how Mr. Altman had been fired.
Mr. Altman, 38, was a founding member of the company and is best known for developing the ChatGPT bot. He has grown to be one of the leading personalities in the rapidly expanding field of generative artificial intelligence (AI).
Several in the company he had led were incensed by the high-profile figure's dismissal, which took them aback and ultimately led them to demand that the board members step down.
Embarrassing circus
Wedbush Securities' Dan Ives claims that although Microsoft was ultimately strengthened, OpenAI suffered greatly as a result of the incident.
They had been "at the kid's poker table and thought they won until Nadella and Microsoft took this all over in a World Series of Poker move for the ages" , he said.
"The embarrassing circus show over the weekend at OpenAI was finally taken over by the adults in the room."
Emmett Shear, the new CEO of OpenAI, was formerly the CEO and co-founder of Twitch, a video streaming service. His "unique mix of skills, expertise and relationships that will drive OpenAI forward" was noted in a memo to the company's employees.
Though he describes himself as a "techno-optimist" and currently leads one of the most influential AI companies in the world, Mr. Shear has voiced reservations about what he believes to be the existential threat posed by the technology.
In June, he said on the Logan Bartlett Show podcast, "It's like someone invented a way to make 10x [ten times] more powerful fusion bombs out of sand and bleach, that anyone could do at home."
The board fired Mr. Altman for reasons that are still unknown.
OpenAI accused Mr. Altman of not being "consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities" when it announced its decision to fire him on Friday. However, the company did not elaborate on the specifics of the alleged lack of candor.
Mr. Shear has responded to some of the rumors surrounding the matter.
"The board's justification was entirely different from any specific dispute on safety, hence they did *not* remove Sam for that reason. Without board backing for commercializing our amazing models, I'm not foolish enough to take this job," he wrote on X.
Though the language is ambiguous, the reference to safety may indicate that there was no disagreement about how to manage the threats that artificial intelligence might pose.
However, Mr. Shear promised to "dig into the entire process" by engaging a third-party investigator.
Extra information provided by Tom Singleton
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