OpenAI is disbanding the team responsible for advising startups on how ready the world is for higher levels of artificial intelligence.
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Miles Brundage, head of OpenAI’s AGI Readiness team, is leaving the company this week, he said in a Substack post on Wednesday. Brundage said he plans to start a nonprofit organization focused on AI policy research or join an existing one. Brundage said the economic research subteam will report to OpenAI’s new chief economist, Ronnie Chatterjee, and other members will be reassigned to other teams.
The outgoing senior advisor said that neither the ChatGPT maker nor other frontier AI labs are ready for artificial general intelligence (AGI), which is considered human-level intelligence. Brundage said part of the reason for starting or joining a nonprofit is that “without a concerted effort to make AI as safe and beneficial as possible, “I think it’s unlikely that AI will be as safe and beneficial as it can be.”
Brundage called his advisory role “essentially my dream job,” but said he would like to “spend more time on issues across the AI industry, publish more freely, and be more independent.” .
One of the main reasons for his departure is the high opportunity cost of OpenAI’s high profile and the feeling that his work would have “more impact” outside of the AI industry. Brundage also said he wanted to “reduce bias” and said, “We’ve accomplished a lot of what we set out to do with OpenAI.”
“We fully support Miles’ decision to pursue policy research outside of industry and are deeply grateful for his contributions,” an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement shared with Quartz. “His plan to commit to independent research on AI policy gives him the opportunity to have a broader impact, and we are excited to learn from his work and track its impact. We are confident that Mr. Miles will continue to raise the bar for the quality of policymaking in industry and government in his new role.”
In May, OpenAI disbanded its “Superalignment” team, which focused on the existential dangers of AI. OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Satskeva and Jan Reike, co-founder of his Super Alignment team, both resigned from the AI startup in the same month.
Mira Murati, the company’s former chief technology officer, announced her departure in September, followed by OpenAI’s chief research officer Bob McGrew and vice president of research Barrett Zoff.
A week after his resignation, OpenAI completed a $6.6 billion funding round, giving it a valuation of $157 billion. The company is also reportedly working on a plan to restructure its nonprofit status, which could give CEO Sam Altman a major stake.
