One other certainly one of OpenAI’s lead security researchers, Lilian Weng, introduced on Friday she is departing the startup. Weng served as VP of analysis and security since August, and earlier than that, was the pinnacle of the OpenAI’s security techniques staff.
In a publish on X, Weng mentioned that “after 7 years at OpenAI, I really feel able to reset and discover one thing new.” Weng mentioned her final day will probably be November fifteenth, however didn’t specify the place she’s going to go subsequent.
“I made the extraordinarily troublesome choice to depart OpenAI,” mentioned Weng within the publish. “Taking a look at what we now have achieved, I’m so pleased with everybody on the Security Methods staff and I’ve extraordinarily excessive confidence that the staff will proceed thriving.”
Weng’s departure marks the most recent in an extended string of AI security researchers, coverage researchers, and different executives who’ve exited the corporate within the final yr, and a number of other have accused OpenAI of prioritizing industrial merchandise over AI security. Weng joins Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike – the leaders of OpenAI’s now dissolved Superalignment staff, which tried to develop strategies to steer superintelligent AI techniques – who additionally left the startup this yr to work on AI security elsewhere.
Weng first joined OpenAI in 2018, in keeping with her LinkedIn, engaged on the startup’s robotics staff that ended up constructing a robotic hand that might remedy a Rubik’s dice – a process that took two years to realize, in keeping with her publish.
As OpenAI began focusing extra on the GPT paradigm, so did Weng. The researcher transitioned to assist construct the startup’s utilized AI analysis staff in 2021. Following the launch of GPT-4, Weng was tasked with making a devoted staff to construct security techniques for the startup in 2023. In the present day, OpenAI’s security techniques unit has greater than 80 scientists, researchers, and coverage consultants, in keeping with Weng’s publish.
That’s lots of AI security people, however many have raised considerations round OpenAI’s deal with security because it tries to construct more and more highly effective AI techniques. Miles Brundage, a longtime coverage researcher, left the startup in October and introduced that OpenAI was dissolving its AGI readiness staff, which he had suggested. On the identical day, the New York Instances profiled a former OpenAI researcher, Suchir Balaji, who mentioned he left OpenAI as a result of he thought the startup’s know-how would deliver extra hurt than profit to society.
OpenAI tells TechCrunch that executives and security researchers are engaged on a transition to switch Weng.
“We deeply recognize Lilian’s contributions to breakthrough security analysis and constructing rigorous technical safeguards,” mentioned an OpenAI spokesperson in an emailed assertion. “We’re assured the Security Methods staff will proceed taking part in a key position in making certain our techniques are secure and dependable, serving a whole lot of thousands and thousands of individuals globally.”
Different executives who’ve left OpenAI in latest months embody CTO Mira Murati, chief analysis officer Bob McGrew, and analysis VP Barret Zoph. In August, the distinguished researcher Andrej Karpathy and co-founder John Schulman additionally introduced they’d be leaving the startup. A few of these people, together with Leike and Schulman, left to affix an OpenAI competitor, Anthropic, whereas others have gone on to begin their very own ventures.
