Sam Altman says Elon Musk’s mind games were hurting OpenAI

Elon Musk has done “huge damage” to the AI ​​startup’s culture, says Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. While testifying as part of A lawsuit filed by Musk against OpenAIMusk asked OpenAI chief Greg Brockman and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever to rank researchers by their accomplishments and “take a saw through a group,” Altman said.

Altman admitted this This was the management style for which the Tesla CEO was famousbut it was incompatible with his startup. “I don’t think Mr. Musk understands how to run a good research lab,” Altman testified when his lawyer, William Savitt, asked about the impact of Musk’s departure from OpenAI on morale. “For a research lab where people need a kind of psychological safety and long periods of time to pursue an idea, this idea is that you always have to show your results, and if they’re not good enough in a short period, you’ll get fired. That hasn’t really worked for the kind of research we’ve done successfully.”

Altman added that Musk’s departure “was a morale boost in some ways,” as employees realized they didn’t have to “work this way anymore.” Musk’s lawsuit Claims to abandon OpenAI Its original mission was to benefit humanity, and Altman and Brockman tricked him into providing funding for the startup.