“Sam Altman Was “Outright Lying to the Board”, Says Former Board Member: In an Interview With TED, Helen Toner Said That 4 OpenAI Board Members “Couldn’t Believe Things That Sam Was Telling Us””, 2024-05-29 (; backlinks):
In an interview with the TED AI Show, former OpenAI board member Helen Toner made a series of dramatic accusations about the misconduct of CEO Sam Altman.
Toner accused Altman of “outright lying to the board”, to the extent that the board “couldn’t believe things that Sam was telling us”.
Notably, Toner said that when Altman tried to push Toner off the board, he did so by “lying to other board members”. [ie. by telling Toner that Tasha McCauley or Adam D’Angelo was supporting her ouster] That matches previous reporting from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
She gave several other examples of Altman’s deception. Toner said Altman didn’t inform the board about the launch of ChatGPT, didn’t tell the board that he owned the OpenAI Startup Fund (despite “claiming to be an independent board member with no financial interest in the company”), and “gave [the board] inaccurate information” about OpenAI’s safety processes. [the redteaming whistleblower?]
Toner also said that executives at OpenAI came to the board accusing Altman of “psychological abuse” and saying they couldn’t trust him. In an op-ed for The Economist this week, Toner and fellow ex-board member Tasha McCauley said “senior leaders had privately shared grave concerns with the board, saying they believed that Mr Altman cultivated ‘a toxic culture of lying’”.
Toner said that some executives have “since tried to … minimize what they told us”, seemingly referring to Mira Murati, who downplayed her concerns after the New York Times reported that those worries are part of what motivated the board to oust Altman. In the TED interview, Toner said that the conversations with executives were “really serious”, with executives sending the board “screenshots and documentation” demonstrating Altman “lying and being manipulative in different situations”. [eg. Sutskever’s Slack screenshots on the EA purge]
When asked why many OpenAI employees supported Altman’s return, Toner attributed it to fear. “It’s really important to know … how scared people are to go against Sam”, she said, adding that employees “were really afraid of what might happen to them” due to having seen Altman retaliate against critics previously. [cf. Vox]
In a statement given to TED, OpenAI board chair Bret Taylor failed to address Toner’s specific claims. “An independent committee of the board worked with the law firm WilmerHale to conduct an extensive review of the events of November”, Taylor said, which “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”. [A list which notably omits all of Toner’s accusations.] In their Economist op-ed, Toner and McCauley noted that this report was not made available to “employees, the press or the public”.