Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Paris Hilton's entertainment company pulled an ad campaign on X, Flo from Progressive celebrates a decade and a half on the air, and Fortune senior writer Alicia Adamczyk writes about OpenAI's new board of directors. Have a great Monday!
- Seat at the table. When the OpenAI chaos finally quieted down last week, the media was quick to name winners. Sam Altman—the OpenAI cofounder and CEO who was fired by OpenAI's board, then hired by Microsoft, then reinstated as OpenAI CEO—certainly came out on top. So did Microsoft, the biggest investor in the ChatGPT-developer, which ended the week with deeper ties to Altman and his posse of devoted employees. Capitalists too were triumphant; the board reshuffle that led to Altman's return expelled members who approached AI cautiously in favor of those who appear more eager to commercialize its power.
It is probably a stretch to say that women were the losers when all was said and done; but if they weren't the losers, they were certainly left out.
The world’s top AI developer is now led and governed by all men: Altman, president Greg Brockman (who left and returned alongside Altman), and a three-person interim board that includes Adam D’Angelo, cofounder and CEO of Quora Inc. and a returning director; Bret Taylor, former co-CEO of Salesforce Inc.; and Larry Summers, former U.S. Treasury secretary.
The two women who served on OpenAI's board when it voted to fire Altman—Tasha McCauley, CEO of GeoSim Systems, and Helen Toner, director at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology—are out as directors, along with Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s chief scientist (who remains at the company). The three departed board members were safety-conscious and reportedly opposed Altman's aggressive plans to monetize OpenAI's technology; their ouster seems to have paved the way for Altman's return.
Mira Murati, OpenAI CTO, is also absent from the post-crisis spotlight. She was named interim chief executive immediately after Altman's firing, only to be replaced two days later by Twitch cofounder Emmett Shear, who has a history of questionable tweets related to sex and dating (and who himself lasted only 72 hours in the job).
The makeup of OpenAI's current leadership has raised alarm among observers who recognize OpenAI's vast influence.
“I guess we know that the revolutionary new future of humanity will be in the most ethical of man hands,” Emily Bell, a founding director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
“I’m thrilled for OpenAI employees that Sam is back, but it feels very 2023 that our happy ending is three white men on a board charged with ensuring AI benefits all of humanity,” Ashley Mayer, CEO of venture capital firm Coalition Operators, wrote on X. “Hoping there’s more to come soon.”
And in fact, it's now up to D’Angelo, Taylor, and Summers to vet and expand the board to up to nine people, according to the Verge, and there are whispers of adding women, according to Bloomberg. Names floated include former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, billionaire philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The usual pushback has followed. “What matters is having directors who deeply understand AI and will stand up to Sam," X owner Elon Musk tweeted in response to Bloomberg’s story. "Human civilization is at stake here.”
Why should OpenAI’s board include directors who are not white men? For one, because of its governance structure, OpenAI's board has unusual control over the company (as Altman's initial firing shows). The company, in turn, arguably has unprecedented sway in the business world, with corporations globally racing to adapt to the ChatGPT era. The board controls the OpenAI nonprofit, which controls the for-profit arm. The arrangement is meant to ensure OpenAI follows its mission and to prevent any one corporate entity—including investors like Microsoft, which doesn't have a board seat—from dictating how the powerful, potentially dangerous technology is used.
Second, artificial intelligence is created by humans. Their biases end up in the products. And AI systems, including OpenAI’s, have already been found to produce biased responses. Diverse leadership seems like the bare minimum to help guard against such outcomes.
In all the mayhem, OpenAI's mission—to “ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity”—received an extraordinary amount of play. If Altman and others at the company truly believe that statement, it only makes sense for the glorious diversity of humanity to be better represented in their decision making.
Alicia Adamczyk
alicia.adamczyk.com
@AliciaAdamczyk
The Broadsheet is Fortune's newsletter for and about the world's most powerful women. Today's edition was curated by Joseph Abrams. Subscribe here.
