OpenAI creates a Safety and Security Committee to explore AI risks and begins training its new flagship AI model, which won't arrive for at least nine months

New York Times 2024-05-29 Cade Metz

Context & Ripple Effects

OpenAI had already said its board could override management on a model release, making board-level control over model releases an important precedent for this new committee.

The move also extends OpenAI’s earlier posture of treating advanced-model risks as potentially severe, articulated in its preparations for a possible AGI outcome. It pairs that governance effort with a defined next-generation training cycle.

First-order effects

OpenAI adds a formal Safety and Security Committee as it begins training its next flagship model, putting risk review alongside—not after—the development process.
The stated minimum timeline signals that the next flagship model is not an imminent product release, preserving the current model lineup as the near-term platform for users and partners.

Second-order effects

The committee creates an additional internal forum through which safety findings can shape release readiness, reinforcing the earlier precedent for board intervention in a release decision.
Rival frontier-model developers face added pressure to show that their own training and release processes include credible safety governance, not just technical performance claims.

Third-order effects

If this approach persists, frontier-model development will increasingly be organized around staged training, evaluation, and release gates rather than a single product-launch decision.
The key unresolved issue is whether internal committees translate into independently legible assurance for customers and public authorities, or remain primarily internal governance mechanisms.

The trend: Frontier AI labs are embedding safety governance into the model-development pipeline as capability advances and release decisions become higher-stakes.

Discussion

@benedictevans Benedict Evans on threads
AMAZING scoop from the FT here!
@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on threads
False alarm folks, everything is fine now.
@jeffjarvis@mastodon.social Jeff Jarvis on mastodon
“Experts disagree on when tech companies will reach artificial general intelligence.” — No. Actual experts ridicule the macho boasts of AGI for the unfounded, cultish belief that is. — OpenAI Says It Has Begun Training a New Flagship A.I. Model https://www.nytimes.com/...
@openai @openai on x
OpenAI Board forms Safety and Security Committee, responsible for making recommendations on critical safety and security decisions for all OpenAI projects. https://openai.com/...
@gartenberg Michael Gartenberg on x
“OpenAI has a new safety team — it's run by Sam Altman” “Mr. Fox, could I trouble you to watch this henhouse for me please?” https://www.theverge.com/...
@tsimonite Tom Simonite on x
Yesterday: Two former OpenAI board members stand by their decision to fire Sam Altman, warning “self-governance mechanisms like those employed by OpenAI will not suffice” Today: OpenAI launches new AI safety committee consisting of Sam Altman and three other board members.
@dominicmadori Dom on x
[image]
@parmy Parmy Olson on x
The timing makes it seem like an attempt to address public concerns about the dissolution of OpenAI's safety team, including the departure of Ilya Sutskever. These things are often public relations exercises.
@parmy Parmy Olson on x
Google's AI “oversight” boards like the ATEAC are also stuffed with Google executives. https://www.bloomberg.com/... The only one that has some teeth is the “Facebook Oversight Board.” It's far from perfect, but at least includes people from outside the company.
@zamaan_qureshi Zamaan Qureshi on x
Having worked for a fake “real” oversight board, I can tell you that the company's oversight board largely failed with fake decisions and the fake “real” board had more teeth than the other one and maybe Altman is just tempting us to make another fake “real” oversight board
@chrisrohlf @chrisrohlf on x
Having both @RGB_Lights and @embeddedsec on this committee should give anyone confidence that cyber security issues will get the proper attention they deserve.
@andrewcurran_ Andrew Curran on x
During the ‘whale’ presentation at the Microsoft keynote Kevin Scott implied that GPT-5 - if that is its name - had begun is training run on the hardware MS had just finished building for OpenAI. This is confirmation of that, and implies a model release at the end of the year. [i…
@sgianella Sandro Gianella on x
An update on our approach to safe AI development and deployment https://openai.com/...
@davidmanheim David Manheim on x
News from @OpenAI: “OpenAI has recently begun training its next frontier model...to bring us to the next level of capabilities on our path to AGI.” Given that, they decided to start a new board committee to evaluate safeguards over the next 90 days. https://openai.com/...
@polynoamial Noam Brown on x
The next @OpenAI frontier model has started training! https://openai.com/... [image]
@parmy Parmy Olson on x
OpenAI just created an oversight board that's filled with its own executives and Altman himself. This is a tried and tested approach to self-regulation in tech that does virtually nothing in the way of actual oversight. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@hpc_guru @hpc_guru on x
.@OpenAI has begun training a new flagship #AI model that would succeed GPT-4 A new Safety and Security Committee to explore how it should handle the risks posed by the new model and future technologies https://www.nytimes.com/...
r/technews r on reddit
OpenAI has a new safety team — it's run by Sam Altman | With three OpenAI board members on the new safety team, will it really be so safe?
r/technology r on reddit
OpenAI has a new safety team — it's run by Sam Altman | With three OpenAI board members on the new safety team, will it really be so safe?
r/ChatGPT r on reddit
OpenAI Says It Has Begun Training a New Flagship A.I. Model
r/singularity r on reddit
From OpenAI's website: “OpenAI has recently begun training its next frontier model and we anticipate the resulting systems to bring us to the next level of capabilities on our path to AGI.”
r/OpenAI r on reddit
OpenAI Says It Has Begun Training a New Flagship A.I. Model

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