The release of GPT-3 solidified OpenAI’s standing, but behind the scenes, tensions were rising.
The rifts began when Amodei successfully lobbied to keep Greg Brockman, an OpenAI cofounder, off the team that developed GPT-3, according to Keach Hagey’s biography of Altman, “The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future.”
Hagey wrote that Amodei’s stunning power within OpenAI had started to ruffle feathers. Differences continued to escalate over Amodei’s long-held views on safety, Hagey wrote, especially regarding slowing the pace of updates to prevent malicious uses of the AI models.
Amodei told friends that he “felt psychologically abused by Altman,” Hagey wrote. Altman, in turn, was telling colleagues that the tension “was making him hate his job.”
On December 29, 2020, OpenAI made it official. Amodei was leaving, and a “handful” of other colleagues were leaving.
Amodei has since suggested that his vision became incompatible with OpenAI’s direction.
“It is incredibly unproductive to try and argue with someone else’s vision,” Amodei told podcaster Lex Friedman in 2024, when asked why he left OpenAI.
