Two years ago, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, said its goal was to build AI that “safely benefits humanity” without being driven by the need to generate financial returns.
Since then, the company has restructured into a for-profit model and has now disbanded the team responsible for communicating its mission to both the public and its own employees. Also, Sam Altman has given the team’s former leader a new role as OpenAI’s “chief futurist”.
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Formed in 2024, the mission alignment team was formed back in September of 2024 and was dedicated to promoting “the company’s stated mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.”
In a statement to TechCrunch, an OpenAI spokesperson said that “the Mission Alignment project was a support function to help employees and the public understand our mission and the impact of AI. That work continues throughout the organization.”
Josh Achiam, who is the head of the now disbanded mission alignment team, said that his new role as the company’s chief futurist is “to support OpenAI’s mission — to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity — by studying how the world will change in response to AI, AGI, and beyond.”
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Achiam added that his new role would require him to collaborate with Jason Pruet, a physicist working at OpenAI.
OpenAI has been slowly disbanding teams, claiming that it is quite common for a fast-moving company to do so. The ChatGPT maker had what it called a “superalignment team”, whose role was to study the long-term threats posed by AI, but it was disbanded in just one year.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has appointed the former mission alignment head as the company’s chief futurist. (Express Photo) 
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