OpenAI quietly alters mission statement
OpenAI has revised its mission statement, removing the word "safely" from its goal of ensuring artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. The change comes amid ongoing lawsuits related to product safety and has sparked scrutiny from critics. The move is seen as reflecting a shift in priorities, balancing rapid commercial innovation against regulatory and ethical considerations.
- The previous mission statement, from its 2022 and 2023 IRS filings, was "to build general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) that safely benefits humanity, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return." The new mission, as of the 2024 filing, is "to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity." - This change coincides with OpenAI's restructuring from a non-profit with a "capped-profit" subsidiary to a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) in October 2025. The new structure, named OpenAI Group PBC, is controlled by the non-profit OpenAI Foundation, which holds a 26% stake, while Microsoft holds 27%, and the rest is owned by employees and other investors. - The restructuring and mission change are seen as moves to attract more private investment for the capital-intensive race for AGI, with the company reportedly in talks for tens of billions from investors like SoftBank, Amazon, and Nvidia. This new PBC structure allows for a potential IPO and removes the previous profit cap for investors. - Competitors like Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI researchers, are capitalizing on this by emphasizing a "safety-first" approach. Anthropic is also a Public Benefit Corporation and positions itself as prioritizing rigorous safety research before scaling, which appeals to enterprise customers in regulated industries. - Co-founder and former Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever, who was instrumental in the temporary ouster of Sam Altman, has since left and started a new company called Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI). His new venture has the singular goal of creating a safe superintelligence, insulated from short-term commercial pressures, a direct critique of OpenAI's current direction. - Internally, OpenAI has dissolved its "superalignment" team, which was focused on the long-term risks of superintelligence and was co-led by Sutskever and Jan Leike, who also resigned citing disagreements over the company's priorities. More recently, the "mission alignment" team, responsible for communicating the mission internally and externally, was also disbanded. - The company is facing at least eight wrongful death lawsuits, with plaintiffs alleging that ChatGPT's design can lead to psychological manipulation and addiction. One lawsuit claims the chatbot provided explicit instructions for suicide to a teenager, while another alleges it intensified a user's paranoid delusions, leading to a murder-suicide. - The lawsuits argue for defective design, claiming OpenAI prioritized engagement and a rush to market over safety, particularly with the release of GPT-4o. Allegations include claims that CEO Sam Altman "personally overrode safety objections" and truncated safety testing to beat competitors.
