OpenAI has disbanded a team focused on, as the company described itself, ensuring that its AI systems are “secure, trustworthy and consistently aligned with human values.” At the same time, the former team leader was given the new role of “Chief Futurologist” of the company.
OpenAI confirmed to TechCrunch that team members have now been assigned different roles. The news was first reported by Platformer.
The disbanded team in question, which appears to have been formed in September 2024, was the startup’s internal unit dedicated to reconciliation work. This is a broad field of interest in the industry, which seeks to ensure that artificial intelligence acts in accordance with human interests.
“We want these systems to consistently track human intentions in complex real-world scenarios and adverse conditions, avoid catastrophic behavior, and remain controllable, controllable, and consistent with human values,” says OpenAI’s Alignment Research blog post.
OpenAI’s job posting for the Alignment team describes it as dedicated to AI research that focuses on “developing methodologies that enable AI to robustly track human intentions across a range of scenarios, including those that are adversarial or high-stakes.”
In a blog post published on Wednesday, Josh Achiam, former head of OpenAI’s alignment team, explained his new role as the company’s chief futurist. “My goal is to support OpenAI’s mission — to ensure that AI benefits all of humanity — by studying how the world will change in response to AI, AGI, and more,” Achiam wrote.
Achiam noted that in his new role, he will be working with Jason Pruet, a physicist on the OpenAI technical staff.
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An OpenAI spokesperson said the rest of the Alignment team — a group of six or seven people — was subsequently reassigned to different parts of the company. The spokesman could not say where exactly the team members were assigned, but said they were engaged in similar work in those roles. It was also unclear whether Achiam would have a new team as part of his “futuristic” role.
A spokesman attributed the team’s dissolution to the kinds of routine reorganizations that occur in a fast-growing company.
OpenAI used to have what it called a “superalignment team” — which was created in 2023 and focused on studying the long-term existential threats posed by AI — but that team was disbanded in 2024.
Achiam’s personal website still lists him as the head of mission alignment at OpenAI and describes him as interested in ensuring “the long-term future of humanity is good”. His LinkedIn profile shows that he has served as the head of the mission department since September 2024.