OpenAI's board forms a Safety and Security Committee
Chaired by board chair Bret Taylor and including CEO Sam Altman as a member, the committee had 90 days to review safety practices before recommending changes to the full board.
- Safety & alignment
- Labs & people
- Minor
OpenAI’s board announced a Safety and Security Committee, chaired by board chair Bret Taylor and including directors Adam D’Angelo and Nicole Seligman alongside chief executive Sam Altman as a member. The committee was given 90 days to evaluate the company’s processes and safeguards for frontier model development and to recommend changes to the full board; OpenAI said it would consult external safety and security experts as part of the review.
The announcement came eleven days after Jan Leike resigned as co-lead of OpenAI’s Superalignment team, saying publicly that “safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products,” and amid separate controversy over OpenAI’s use of a voice resembling actress Scarlett Johansson’s. Critics noted that placing the sitting CEO on a body meant to scrutinise the company’s own safety decisions blunted its independence, even with three outside board members also serving.
The committee’s composition changed later that year: Altman stepped down from it, and by the time it issued its recommendations the group had been reconstituted with an independent chair — a shift that followed, rather than pre-empted, the criticism the original structure drew at launch.