Sam Altman is back at Open AI.
That was a roller coaster ride for Sam, the face of artificial intelligence. And his departure was all seen from a white male’s perspective.
Many were quick to compare Sam Altman’s dismissal from OpenAI to Steve Jobs’s ouster from Apple, which he co-founded with Steve Wozniak.
But there’s a difference — huge.
Steve Jobs was fired due to the commercial failures of Lisa and Macintosh whereas Sam Altman was removed for prioritizing profit over safety, pushing OpenAI’s technologies out to the public, without any second thoughts on how it would affect humanity’s future.
The mindset of a startup founder is to always ship early, be first, and see what happens.
Artificial intelligence carries immense implications. Unlike Apple, those computers that failed never had the possibility of operating without any human intervention, and to think by themselves which is in the realm of possibility with artificial intelligence.
Are we ready for the consequences?
It could be the end of humanity as we know it.
Of course, there’s the possibility that all of our fears will never happen and that AI could instead shape the future that will benefit mankind.
It is still a toss-up.
How much is OpenAI worth?
It was the biggest tech news, the corporate shakeup that nobody expected. What followed next was confusion. By the following Monday, the majority of OpenAI’s employees wanted Sam Altman back and threatened to resign en masse.
Within days, Sam was reinstated as CEO alongside Greg Brockman who was OpenAI’s president and had resigned in support of Altman.
Both were headed to Microsoft, OpenAI’s major investor, owning 49% of the company, which played a key role in their return.
The news was shared by Greg Brockman on Twitter.
It‘s noteworthy that Elon Musk, once part of OpenAI, became a critic when the organization shifted from non-profit to for-profit.
OpenAI’s soaring valuation reflects the AI community’s conviction: Generalized AI represents the most transformational technology of our lifetime.
Altman’s departure coincided with potential funding that showed OpenAI’s valuation at $80 billion. The timing of his firing risked the company’s leading position in AI.
In the startup world, a single misstep can leave room for competitors like Anthropic, the company behind Claude, it could easily position itself as an Open AI alternative.
OpenAI’s recent transition into a capped-profit company further aligns its mission toward democratizing access. With support from partners like Microsoft, they are uniquely positioned to responsibly pioneer artificial general intelligence applications for consumers and businesses alike.
Initially, the Board was defiant, but what happened behind closed doors and backroom deals will remain unknown. Significant risks persist, even if Sam moved on to Microsoft.
The AI cat is out of the bag. There’s no turning back unless we shut it down, but who would when money is on the table?
By 2032, AI is projected to become a $1.3 trillion market according to research. OpenAI‘s revenue strategy involves early product releases like Chat-GPT which broke records as the fastest-growing app in history and Dall-E for generative images. It also licenses its APIs to companies that create more AI products.
Microsoft experiencing a resurgence by offering OpenAI products within its search engine Bing, which not only is their biggest investor but also their largest client.
OpenAI’s early releases have pushed competitors like Google, and Facebook, as well as the OpenAI alternative Claude, to hasten their own public launches.
Everyone is now trying to catch up with Open AI.
Sam Altman is back, but where are the women?
Post-reorganization: When the dust settled, the Board saw the replacement of two key women with men, reinforcing the male-dominated AI narrative.
OpenAI looks like an all-male club. A snippet of the problem with AI.
Everything comes from a white man’s perspective.
The problem stems from AI’s training models: the bulk of online data, often male and white-centric, shapes its perspective. Remember when Google’s photo app mislabeled two black people as “gorillas”?
Chat GPT initially mirrored these biases when it was first released. A consequence of its training data sets, rather than inherent AI prejudice.
One user prompted ChatGPTto write the following lyrics: “If you see a woman in a lab coat, She’s probably just there to clean the floor / But if you see a man in a lab coat, Then he’s probably got the knowledge and skills you’re looking for.” — Bloomberg
With the Board’s reshuffle, it was clear: Women’s voices were being sidelined.
Quora founder and CEO Adam D’Angelo who together with the other three board members decided to fire Altman, remained on the Board.
They are out.
Both Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley notable in their own rights, were ousted. The perception of them online is skewed, as seen in Google’s search results which list McCauley as the wife of Hollywood actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt. rather than as CEO of GeoSim Systems, her own company.
See how Google sees her.
More on OpenAI: The tension between Helen Toner and Sam Altman seemed more academic and philosophical, but many sources tell me he and others in the company definitely wanted her off the board in the weeks prior.
The issues with Tasha McCauley are deeper and, as described to me by many sources, she has used very apocalyptic terms for her fears of the tech itself and who should and should not have their “fingers on the button.” Think Terminator with a dash of Time Cop (BEST. MOVIE. EVER.) — Kara Swisher
In the wake of Altman’s return, women’s voices in AI’s future are being “silenced.”
Did Helen Toner echo Timnit Gebru’s warnings at Google about AI’s dangers? The white, male-dominated AI space seems averse to such perspectives.
Timnit Gebru was fired as technical co-lead of the Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team during the pandemic exemplifying the backlash against women who challenge the status quo.
Look what happens when a woman gets in the way of the “boy’s club.”
It feels like a gold rush,” says Timnit Gebru.
Her concerns about AI were profound: The technology, driven by massive data sets, might perpetuate existing biases and hegemonies.
AI threatens to deepen the dominance of a way of thinking that is white, male, comparatively affluent and focused on the US and Europe.— The Guardian
There was also the unsavory truth that much of the data cleansing for these AI systems is outsourced to low-wage countries, like the Philippines, exposing these workers to harmful content.
The equivalence of digital sweatshops.
The digital ceiling for women in tech
Linda Yaccarino who became the CEO of Twitter or X as Musk calls it now, faces a public identity crisis.
It was even asked during her appearance at Code this year. Probably, she even regretted being a guest at that tech event.
Despite being CEO, her role is often overshadowed by Musk who remains the face of Twitter, just like Sam Altman is with AI.
All the product updates come from him, even embroiling the private company into more controversies, none of it would have happened if Linda Yaccarino was its “real” CEO.
When women in tech raise concerns they are often dismissed and marginalized.
It happened to Timnit Gebru, Tasha McCauley, and Helen Toner.
Toner’s expertise in national security and experience as the director of strategy at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) was initially valued at OpenAI, but her comparative analysis of OpenAI and Anthropic, which favored the latter was unwelcome.
The majority of OpenAI’s employees predominantly white and Asian males, rallied behind Altman and called for the old Board members to resign.
Final words
What’s next?
There are talks of inviting names like Timnit Gebru, but none of them are eager to join the board.
OpenAi’s saga mirrors the broader tech industry: A male-dominated space, with a digital ceiling that is harder to break than the traditional glass ceiling. The invisible barrier that has prevented women and people of color from moving into higher roles in companies and societal hierarchy.
Altman’s return is celebrated by many as a heroic comeback partly through Microsoft’s intervention not seen since the day Apple took back Steve Jobs as its CEO.
Microsoft wasn’t too keen on any disruption with the golden goose that is OpenAI.
The rush to innovate must be tempered with caution, especially with AI’s unpredictable trajectory.
The potential for AI to evolve into a sentient force and the emerging possibility of AGI — artificial general intelligence poses existential questions, often raised by women in the field.
It isn’t science fiction.
The question remains: Are men ready to listen to women’s voices?
Thank you for reading.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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