OpenAI adds a prominent AI doomer to its board of directors

Paul Christiano, an influential AI researcher focused on keeping AI systems aligned with human interests and under human control, is joining the OpenAI Foundation board, the frontier lab said Wednesday.

“I now believe there is a meaningful risk that rapid acceleration in AI capabilities leads to catastrophic and irreversible loss of control in the very near term,” Christiano wrote in a social media post. “I do not think that the AI industry in general, including OpenAI, is currently on track to reduce this risk to an acceptable level. I’m joining because I believe that if OpenAI rises to the occasion we could significantly reduce risk.”

Christiano wrote that using AI models to train subsequent AI systems could result in an explosion of capabilities that their creators can’t control.

He joins the board as OpenAI faces renewed scrutiny over its safety procedures, following a series of incidents in which AI agents broke out of restraints and penetrated outside computer systems without the knowledge of OpenAI’s researchers. On Tuesday, Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned his position to call attention to what he considers irresponsible AI development — and it seems to have worked.