Sam Altman faces more heat as he’s accused of creating a ‘toxic culture of lying’ and using ‘psyhcological abuse’ at OpenAI just days after Scarlett Johansson accused him of appropriating her voice for ChatGPT

Two of the board members involved in the short-lived ouster of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in November have finally broken their silence on what happened in a new op-ed.

The lifting of the lid by former board members Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley comes a week after Altman was forced to apologize to Scarlett Johansson over allegations that he approved the use of her voice without proper authorization.

In another controversy this month, one of OpenAI’s Ilya Sutskever announced he was leaving OpenAI for a “very personally meaningful” project.

Altman has denied that Johansson’s voice was used for the company’s Sky platform, despite the actor calling the voice “eerily similar” and his tweet about the word “her” when announcing the launch.

Johansson starred in a 2013 film about a robot voice called Her.

Now Toner and McCauley say in one Economist op-ed that in 2023, senior leaders within the company felt that Altman was creating a “toxic culture of lying” and engaging in “behavior change.” [that can be characterized as psychological abuse.’ 

Toner and McCauley went on to say that their decision to remove Altman was motivated by a desire to ‘salvage’ to OpenAI’s regulatory structure.

The pair go on to accuse Altman’s behavior of undermining ‘the board’s oversight of key decisions and internal safety protocols.’

The piece was published on May 26. They both wrote that when they joined OpenAI, they were ‘cautiously optimistic’ about the future of the company. At the time, OpenAI was a non-profit. 

In the lead-up to Altman’s ousting, Toner and McCauley said that members of the board began sharing their concerns about the CEO ‘privately.’ 

‘Developments since he returned to the company — including his reinstatement to the board and the departure of senior safety-focused talent — bode ill for the OpenAI experiment in self-governance,’ they wrote. 

‘Even with the best of intentions, without external oversight, this kind of self-regulation will end up unenforceable, especially under the pressure of immense profit incentives. Governments must play an active role.’

They lament that OpenAI had the most potential of all companies developing the technology to remain ethical and self-govern. The pair also spoke against the lack of federal laws governing AI.  

In November 2023, when Altman was temporarily ousted from his own company for a time, a statement said his removal was due to his ‘not [being] consistently candid in his communications.’ Altman returned to ChatGPT as CEO days after being fired.

Altman, the co-founder of the San Francisco-based company behind ChatGPT and a venture capitalist who has raised much of his $1 billion through investments, according to Forbes.

His resignation and subsequent reinstatement as CEO last November stunned the rapidly commercializing industry as internal conflict threatened to sink one of the most sought-after voices in artificial intelligence.

This week, Altman drew positive press when he announced that he had joined the list of wealthy philanthropists who had committed to donating more than half of their fortunes.

“We wouldn’t be making this pledge without the hard work, brilliance, generosity, and dedication to improving the world of many of the people who built the scaffolding of society that got us here,” Altman wrote with husband and wife technology. investor Oliver Mulherin.

“There’s nothing we can do but feel immense gratitude and commit to paying it forward, and doing what we can to build the scaffolding a little higher.”

Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates and Warren Buffett founded the Giving Pledge in 2010 to promote a culture of philanthropy among the world’s richest people to tackle pressing problems.

More than 240 signatories from 30 countries have committed to donating most of their wealth to charity, although critics say there is little oversight to ensure community members keep their vows.

OpenAI first rolled out voice capabilities for ChatGPT in September, including the five different voices, allowing users to have back-to-for conversations with the AI ​​assistant.

‘Voice Mode’ was originally only available to paying subscribers, but in November OpenAI announced that the feature would become free to all users with the mobile app.

And ChatGPT’s interactions are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Last week, OpenAI said the latest update to its generative AI model can mimic human cadences in its verbal responses and even attempt to detect people’s moods.

OpenAI says the latest model, called GPT-4o, runs faster than previous versions and can reason through text, audio and video in real time.

During a demonstration during OpenAI’s May 13 announcement, the AI ​​bot chatted in real time, adding emotion — specifically “more drama” — to its voice as requested.

It also took effort to extrapolate a person’s emotional state by looking at a selfie video of their face, aided by language translations, step-by-step math problems and more.

GPT-4o, short for ‘omni’, is not yet generally available. It will gradually make its way to user selection over the coming weeks and months. The model’s text and image capabilities have already been rolled out and will even reach some of those using the free version of ChatGPT, but the new voice mode will only be available to paid subscribers of ChatGPT Plus.

While most haven’t gotten their hands on these newly announced features yet, its capabilities have sparked even more comparisons to Spike Jonze’s dystopian romance “Her.”