OpenAI disbanded its preparedness team – FT🤯
According to the Financial Times, OpenAI disbanded its preparedness team at the end of last month. The job of the team was to assess whether models posed serious risks and developed ways to mitigate them, including the possibility of AI going rogue and hacking another company. FT reports that responsibility has instead been divided by areas such as bio and cyber and moved into existing teams.
The move is the latest change at OpenAI as the company undergoes upheaval ahead of an expected massive IPO. In recent years, it has dismantled its more safety-focused structure, dissolving its AGI readiness and superalignment teams. Ethics lead Chloé Bakalar, Chief Futurist Josh Achiam, and safety head Johannes Heidecke have also recently left. Critics including Jan Leike, who resigned from OpenAI in 2024, told FT the company was ignoring safety to create “shiny products.”
Preparedness team head Dylan Scandinaro, who was recruited from Anthropic in February, will now focus on the implications of “recursive self-improving” AI.
