OpenAI's former board member Helen Toner recently revealed the reason behind OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman's ouster from the company in November 2023. Ms Toner was speaking at The Ted AI Show podcast and said that Mr Altman had made it "difficult for the board" to do their job. "Sam had made it really difficult for the board to actually do that job by, you know, withholding information, misrepresenting things that were happening at the company, in some cases outright lying to the board," she said.
This is the first time Ms Toner has talked about what happened when the CEO was fired and then brought back. The former board member, who is currently the Georgetown University Centre for Security and Emerging Technology's Director of Strategy, accused Mr Altman of lying to the board, "withholding information" and "misrepresenting things that were happening in the company" for several years.
"Sam didn't inform the board that he owned the OpenAI startup fund, even though he constantly was claiming to be an independent board member with no financial interest in the company," she said.
The board was "already talking pretty seriously about whether we needed to fire him" in October, according to Ms Toner, and withholding that information from them "really damaged our ability to trust him," Ms Toner added. She also made the shocking allegation that, despite being on the board, they found out about ChatGPT's public launch via Twitter.
She added that Mr Altman gave board members "inaccurate information about the small number of formal safety processes" the company had in place. This, according to her, made it "basically impossible" for the board to determine whether the safety precautions were adequate or whether any adjustments were required. She stated that although there were other specific instances, the board finally came to the conclusion that "we just couldn't believe things that Sam was telling us, and that's a completely unworkable place to be in as a board."
She clarified that the board's principal purpose was to uphold OpenAI's security and safety. Ms Toner continued, "The board is a nonprofit board that was set up explicitly for the purpose of making sure that the company's, you know, public good mission was primary, was coming first over profits, investor interests, and other things."
However, according to her, the board had several discussions in October last year during which two executives described their personal interactions with Mr Altman and used the term "psychological abuse."
She claimed that the management team "didn't think he was the right person to lead the company to AGI, telling us they had no belief that he could or would change, no point in giving him feedback, no point in trying to work through these issues."
Ms Toner stated that when the board realised Mr Altman needed to be replaced, it was obvious that, if he found out, he would "pull out all the stops" to prevent the board from taking action against him. She added that he "started lying to other board members in order to try and push me off the board."
She continued, "We were very careful, very deliberate about who we told, which was essentially almost no one in advance, other than obviously our legal team and so that's kind of what took us to to November 17."
Meanwhile, Breat Taylor, Chairman of the OpenAI Board, said in a statement to the podcast host, "We are disappointed that Ms Toner continues to revisit these issues. An independent committee of the board worked with the law firm Wilmer Hale, to conduct an extensive review of the events of November. The review concluded that the prior board's decision was not based on concerns regarding product safety or security, the pace of development, OpenAI's finances, or its statements to investors, customers, or business partners."
He added, "Additionally, over 95 per cent of employees, including senior leadership, asked for Sam's reinstatement as CEO and the resignation of the prior board. Our focus remains on moving forward and pursuing OpenAI's mission to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity."
