OpenAI disbanded its mission alignment team on Wednesday and reassigned its members to other divisions within the company, according to Platformer.
The reorganization follows the 2024 dissolution of the company’s superalignment team and coincides with the appointment of former team lead Josh Achiam as chief futurist. The shift occurs as the company integrates safety and mission-related functions across its broader research and product departments rather than maintaining a dedicated support unit.
A spokesperson for OpenAI confirmed that the group of six or seven employees will now engage in similar work in their new roles. The company attributed the change to routine restructuring common in high-growth technology firms.
Achiam stated in a blog post that his new role as chief futurist involves studying how the world will respond to artificial general intelligence (AGI). He will collaborate with OpenAI physicist Jason Pruet to analyze long-term technological impacts.
The mission alignment team was established in September 2024 to communicate the company’s goals to the public and internal staff. Its objective was to ensure AGI development remains aligned with human interests and follows human intent in adversarial or high-stakes scenarios.
OpenAI previously operated a superalignment team led by co-founder Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike, which focused on managing existential risks from future superintelligence. That group was dissolved in May 2024 following the departure of its leadership.
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