The last few days have seen major upheavals in the tech industry as Sam Altman was ousted as OpenAI CEO and is now leading Microsoft’s new AI team.
However, several prominent tech figures have noted differences in the scrutiny Sam Altman has faced versus that of AI ethics expert Timnit Gebru when she was ousted from Google.
Altman’s Departure
On Friday, OpenAI announced Altman’s departure from his role as CEO, hiring Mira Murati as the interim CEO.
Altman and Greg Brockman created OpenAI in 2015 alongside nine others, which made headlines last month for seeking a valuation of $80 billion.
In a statement on Friday, OpenAI said that Altman’s departure follows a deliberate review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board.
They said this hindered its ability to exercise its responsibilities, and the board no longer has confidence in its ability to continue leading OpenAI.
OpenAI has now installed Emmett Shear, the co-founder of video streaming site Twitch, as the company’s third CEO in three days.
There was talk of unrest among the remaining OpenAI staff when the news broke, as Murati posted on X, “OpenAI is nothing without its people.”
The Fight For Altman
Now, Microsoft has swooped in to hire ousted OpenAI CEO Altman and the firm’s co-founder Brockman to lead a new AI team, despite the claims against him at OpenAI.
Additionally, according to the Financial Times, 747 of OpenAI’s 770 employees of OpenAI have signed a letter threatening to quit and join Sam Altman at Microsoft unless the startup’s board resigns and reappoints the ousted CEO.
However, the board has remained resolute and was prepared to test employees’ willingness to quit.
A Lack of Scrutiny?
Many have criticized the tech industry for ignoring the allegations against Altman.
Leading AI ethicist Timnit Gebru tweeted: “Yet another Silicon Valley person propped up by every major establishment, including those who call themselves journalists, and better yet, governments who are supposed to protect citizens, not fawn over CEOs of multinational corporations.”
Eric Newcomer, founder of the tech and venture capital media outlet Newcomer, noted that Altman’s departure from Y Combinator had also been under-explored.
Altman worked as President of Y Combinator from 2014 to 2019.
“It’s stunning how little scrutiny Sam Altman’s various title changes at Y Combinator received in the big business publications,” Newcomer’s 2021 article read.
“Altman went from president to chairman, to being an advisor, to having no affiliation with Y Combinator without much detailed reporting from the press. YC successfully swept what seems to be a real schism under the rug.”
What If Sam Altman Were A Black Woman?
“What if Sam Altman was a Black woman?” Matt Wallaert, the founder of BeSci, tweeted. “Did Timnit get to return to Google? Did investors throw money at her to start something else?” sparking a conversation on Twitter.”
Gebru, a widely respected leader in AI ethics research, was fired from Google in 2020. She had pushed to publish a paper highlighting bias in a new AI language-learning system at Google.
The head of Google AI, Jeff Dean, said the paper didn’t meet their bar for publication and not long after Gebru was cut off from her corporate email account.
After getting fired from Google, Gebru told Fortune that she knew she would be blacklisted from a whole bunch of large tech companies.
“The ones that I wouldn’t be (blacklisted from) – it would be just very difficult to work in that kind of environment. I just wasn’t going to do that anymore,” she said.
She then started her own organization, the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR).
Wallaert now wants journalists to ask Altman the same questions they asked Gebru after she got fired from Google.
“The NYT even felt like a stab at her indirectly, calling it the “philosophical movement devoted to the fear of AI,” he tweeted.
Timnit did receive support from Google employees and the broader tech industry, who sent a letter to senior leadership demanding that the company reinstate her and apologize to her.
However, it is hard to ignore how Altman is being painted as an AI superstar and the overwhelmingly positive coverage of his dismissal and mass support to the extent that customers may even be ditching OpenAI.
“Don’t get me wrong, I like Sam and have only heard great things, but it absolutely would have played out differently had he been a BW (Black Woman),” said Founder and CEO of Squad Isa Watson.
Brian Brackeen, the organizer of Black Tech Week, tweeted, “Black founders are assumed guilty.”
“Yup,” said Kimberly Bryant, Founder of Black Girls Code.
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