OpenAI’s chief futurist is leaving the company

Chief Futurist at OpenAI, Joshua Achiam informed colleagues on Tuesday that he will leave the company later this month after nearly nine years, WIRED has learned. Achiam, who previously led a team charged with supporting the organization Non-profit missiontold OpenAI employees that his departure was not motivated by any specific reason, but was something he had been thinking about for a while.

“The world is now in on the secret, and it is possible to work on the mission from outside the walls of the frontier laboratory,” Achiam said in a memo to staff obtained by WIRED. “I believe we can achieve a world of unprecedented peace and prosperity, and unimaginable social and scientific possibilities. Whatever I do next, I will continue to work with you to make this vision a reality.”

OpenAI has not yet announced whether anyone will fill the role of Akhayam, who sat at the intersection of the company’s AI safety and policy teams and involved studying the potential harms and benefits of the rise of AI. Akhayam has worked with the company’s senior leaders, including the President of Global Affairs Chris Lehaneto advocate for government regulations consistent with OpenAI’s mission: to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.

OpenAI has reorganized its safety, product and research teams numerous times Since launching ChatGPT in 2022, the company has rapidly grown from a small research lab to a massive technology company. In 2024, OpenAI announced the formation of a “Mission Coordination Team” led by Akhiyam that is tasked with supporting the company’s mission. OpenAI Dissolve the group In February it was announced that Achiam would take on a new role as head of the Futurists.

Last year, OpenAI worked to bridge the gap between AI research and policy teams as part of its effort to develop rules and standards that anticipate where its technology is headed. As the two departments begin to cooperate more closely, several OpenAI researchers, including Boaz Barak, Noam Brown, and Adrian Ecovit, say they have become more involved in political action.

Former White House AI advisor Dean Paul He started At OpenAI this week as the company’s head of strategic futures, he will overlap briefly with Akhiyam. Paul is also expected to work with researchers and policy leaders in his role.

Achiam is the latest safety-focused leader to leave OpenAI, joining a growing list of exits as a company Preparing to be released to the public. Jan Lake, who co-led OpenAI’s Superalignment team investigating how to keep advanced AI models under human control, is leaving to join Anthropic in 2024.

That same year, Miles Brundage, head of policy research, and Steven Adler, who led research into the dangerous capabilities of AI models, both left OpenAI to found nonprofits that advocate for AI labs to adhere to strong safety and security standards. Andrea Fallonewho led OpenAI’s research into how to respond to ChatGPT Users suffering from mental or emotional distressleft to join Leike’s team at Anthropic at the end of 2025.

After joining OpenAI as an intern in 2017, Akhayam became a research scientist focused on AI safety. He was known internally as a strong advocate for OpenAI’s safety-focused mission, but was also controversial for his work. Criticism from time to time For the broader AI safety community.

Earlier this year, he testified in federal court that he interrupted Elon Musk’s farewell speech when he left OpenAI in 2018, suggesting that the then-billionaire’s plan to develop general artificial intelligence at Tesla could come at the expense of safety. Musk allegedly responded by calling Akhiyam an “ass,” a moment that Dario Amodei (now CEO of Anthropic) and David Luan (who later became head of Amazon’s AGI lab) celebrated with a dedication. Ahiam: A statue of a golden donkey’s backsideInscribed with the phrase “Never stop being an ass for safety”.