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John Schulman, co-founder of OpenAI, announced on Monday that he will be leaving the company to join rival AI startup Anthropic. Schulman, who has been a key figure in refining OpenAI’s AI models, will take on a new role at Anthropic, a company that has attracted significant investment from Amazon.
Schulman’s departure comes less than three months after OpenAI disbanded its superalignment team, which was dedicated to ensuring that advanced AI systems remain controllable. Schulman, who has been with OpenAI since completing his Ph.D. in computer science at UC Berkeley in 2016, had been serving as co-leader of the post-training team and head of alignment science.
In his announcement on social media, Schulman emphasized his desire to focus more deeply on AI alignment and return to hands-on technical work. He clarified that his decision was not due to a lack of support from OpenAI for the field but rather a personal choice to advance his career in a new direction.
The shake-up at OpenAI follows recent departures and changes within the company. Earlier this year, Jan Leike, a leader of the superalignment team, joined Anthropic, while Ilya Sutskever, another co-founder, is helping to establish a new venture called Safe Superintelligence Inc. The departure of these key figures reflects a broader trend of shifting allegiances and competitive dynamics in the AI industry.
OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, noted Schulman’s influence on the startup’s early strategy and reaffirmed the company’s commitment to AI safety. The departure also follows a tumultuous period last November when the board attempted to remove Altman as CEO, leading to employee protests and the eventual reinstatement of Altman.
In related news, Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president and co-founder, has announced he will be taking a sabbatical for the remainder of the year.
As the AI landscape evolves, with major players like Amazon, Google, and Meta also developing advanced language models, Schulman’s move to Anthropic highlights the competitive and rapidly changing nature of the industry.