SAN FRANCISCO — A high-ranking executive at OpenAI who served a few days as its interim CEO during a period of turmoil last year said she’s leaving the artificial intelligence company.
Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, said in a written statement Wednesday that, after much reflection, she has “made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI.”
“I’m stepping away because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration,” she said.
It’s the latest high-profile departure from San Francisco-based OpenAI, which started as a nonprofit research laboratory and is best known for making ChatGPT. Its president and co-founder, Greg Brockman, said in August he was “taking a sabbatical” through the end of the year. Another co-founder, John Schulman, left in August for rival Anthropic, founded in 2021 by a group of ex-OpenAI leaders.
Yet another co-founder, Ilya Sutskever, who led a team focused on AI safety, left in May and has started his own AI company.
Days after Sutskever’s departure, his safety team co-leader Jan Leike also resigned and leveled criticism at OpenAI for letting safety “take a backseat to shiny products.”
Murati spoke positively of the company and its CEO Sam Altman in a departing note to colleagues shared on social media, describing it as “at the pinnacle of AI innovation” and saying it’s hard to leave a place one cherishes.
Altman later replied to Murati’s post on X and expressed his gratitude for her service to the company. He also said OpenAI would provide more information on the leadership transition in the coming days.
Murati was suddenly catapulted to be the company’s interim CEO late last year after the board of directors fired Altman, sparking upheaval in the AI industry. The company later brought in another interim CEO before restoring Altman to his leadership role and replacing most of the board members who ousted him.
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