AI firms mustn’t govern themselves, say ex-members of OpenAI’s board

If any company could have successfully governed itself while safely and ethically developing advanced AI systems, it would have been OpenAI. The organisation was originally established as a non-profit with a laudable mission: to ensure that AGI, or artificial general intelligence—AI systems that are generally smarter than humans—would benefit “all of humanity”. Later, a for-profit subsidiary was created to raise the necessary capital, but the non-profit stayed in charge. The stated purpose of this unusual structure was to protect the company’s ability to stick to its original mission, and the board’s mandate was to uphold that mission. It was unprecedented, but it seemed worth trying. Unfortunately it didn’t work.