NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 19 – Worldcoin billionaire Sam Altan has been sacked from his position as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Open AI, the company behind the ChatGPT bot.
The crisis at OpenAI deepened this weekend when the company said Altman’s ousting was for allegedly misleading the board.
In an internal company memo, the chief operating officer, Brad Lightcap, said Altman sacking was after a deliberative review process which concluded he had not been consistently candid in his communications.
The inconsistencies in the communication is said to have led to a breakdown in communication between Altman and the board.
The internal memo highlighted that the firing was not linked to anything related to our financial, business, safety, or security/privacy practices but the fact that the board had lost confidence in its 38-year-old co-founder.
“Mr Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities,” the company said.
Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati was appointed interim CEO until a more permanent replacement is found to lead the American tech firm.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, shortly after the announcement, Altman said he “loved working with such talented people” and that leading the company had been “transformative to me personally”.
“i loved my time at openai. it was transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit. most of all i loved working with such talented people. will have more to say about what’s next later,”Altman stated.
“i love you all. today was a weird experience in many ways. but one unexpected one is that it has been sorta like reading your own eulogy while you’re still alive. the outpouring of love is awesome,”he added.
In July, Altman launched eyeball-scanning cryptocurrency startup ‘Worldcoin’ to help build a reliable solution for distinguishing humans from AI online, enable global democratic processes and drastically increase economic opportunity.
Worldcoin consists of a privacy-preserving digital identity (World ID) and, where laws allow, a digital currency (WLD) received simply for being human.
The government suspended all activities associated with the cryptocurrency project WorldCoin in Kenya until risks to the public are assessed.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki, the suspension will ensure relevant security, financial services and data protection agencies establish the authenticity and legality of their activities.
A probe done by joint Adhoc parliamentary committee called on ICT regulator, the Communication Authority, to disable Worldcoin’s physical and virtual presence “including blacklisting the IP addresses of related websites” until the country establishes proper regulations over virtual assets.
