John Schulman, who helped create OpenAI and played a crucial role in developing ChatGPT, is departing the company after nearly nine years. He's joining competitor Anthropic to focus more on AI safety.
Schulman, who led the post-training of the model behind ChatGPT, shaping it into what it is today, announced his departure in a message to colleagues, which he shared on X (formerly Twitter).
At Anthropic, the company behind the Claude models, Schulman will be reunited with Jan Leike, OpenAI's former AI super-alignment safety lead. Leike recently joined Anthropic after heavily criticizing OpenAI for its safety practices. His former super-alignment team, which aimed to find alignment rules for a potential super-AI, was disbanded after several researchers left.
Schulman was set to take over Leike's position at OpenAI. In a podcast about two months ago, he said he believes Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) could arrive within two to three years.
Schulman said that joining Anthropic would provide him with fresh perspectives and the opportunity to work with people deeply engaged in the topics he is most passionate about.
He stressed that his decision to leave was not due to a lack of support for AI alignment research at OpenAI. In fact, he noted that the company's executives are highly committed to investing in this field.
Schulman joined OpenAI as part of the founding team nearly nine years ago, straight out of his PhD program. He said it is the first and only company he has ever worked for, and expressed pride in "building an unusual and unprecedented company with a public benefit mission."
Coinciding with Schulman's departure, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman announced that he is taking a sabbatical until the end of the year. Brockman had briefly left OpenAI last November when Sam Altman was fired, but returned after a few days.
These departures come as OpenAI faces increasing scrutiny over its safety practices, business model, and relationship with Microsoft.
