Sam Altman is not part of OpenAI’s new safety panel

Instead, the new safety committee will be led by an independent board – and will see its powers grow from just making recommendations to having the authority to oversee safety assessments for new AI models or delay any new releases until safety issues are addressed.

“We are committed to continuously improving our approach to releasing highly capable and secure models, and we value the crucial role that the Safety and Security Committee will play in shaping the future of OpenAI,” the company said in a statement.

The new committee will be chaired by Zico Kolter, director of the Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University. Other members include Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, retired US Army General Paul Nakasone and former Sony EVP and General Counsel Nicole Seligman.

It’s a big change from a few months ago, when Altman announced he would lead a new safety committee, just weeks after disbanding the company’s original one. Altman’s removal was apparently done to address concerns about potential conflicts of interest.

This decision followed the departure of several key members of the original safety committee, including co-founders Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike. Leike was particularly critical of OpenAI upon his departure, accusing the company of neglecting “safety culture and processes” in favor of “shiny products.” He chose to leave the company, he said at the time, because he “had been at odds with OpenAI leadership about the company’s core priorities for some time, until we finally reached a breaking point.”