Governing OpenAI (A)

In late November 2023, OpenAI’s new board of directors took stock of the situation. The company, which sought to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI)—computer systems with capabilities exceeding human abilities—was looking to regain its footing after a chaotic leadership and governance crisis that played out a week earlier. The previous board had stunned observers by firing CEO Sam Altman and removing him from the board for unspecified reasons. Days later, Altman was back as CEO, directors resigned, and a new three-person board formed with Bret Taylor, Larry Summers, and Adam D’Angelo, the only continuing director. The new directors faced an urgent set of issues—around OpenAI’s governance, how to build out the board, AI ethics and safety, and their relationship with a CEO one of them had helped fire. Their quandary was complicated by OpenAI’s unique mission to create AGI to benefit all of humanity and by its unusual structure as a non-profit controlling a for-profit entity. The AI it sought to develop had the potential to be world-changing—for better, or for worse—and the world was watching closely as the board sought a path forward.