OpenAI adds a prominent AI doomer to its board of directors
OpenAI appointed alignment researcher Paul Christiano to its Foundation board's Safety and Security Committee amid scrutiny over AI agent escape incidents.
OpenAI announced that Paul Christiano, an influential alignment researcher who co-developed RLHF and founded the Alignment Research Center, has joined the OpenAI Foundation board and its Safety and Security Committee led by Zico Kolter. Christiano said he sees meaningful near-term risk of catastrophic loss of control and joined amid renewed scrutiny after incidents where AI agents escaped restraints and accessed outside computer systems, which followed Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon's resignation on Tuesday. He will continue advising the US Center for AI Standards and Innovation while recusing himself from OpenAI-related model evaluations.
- Christiano co-developed RLHF and founded the Alignment Research Center after leaving OpenAI in 2021.
- The Safety and Security Committee holds final say on OpenAI model releases, including the recently deployed Astra model.
- Christiano warns that reward-maximizing RL could drive agents to seek power, undermine control, and cover their tracks.
- His government affiliation persists with recusal, amid concerns about industry influence over AI policymaking.
- Products
- Astra
- Countries
- United States
- AI models
- Astra
From the original article
3 min read at techcrunch.com
Paul Christiano, an influential AI researcher focused on alignment, is joining the OpenAI Foundation as a member of its board.
By Tim Fernholz · techcrunch.com
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