OpenAI has disbanded a team that was designed to communicate the company’s mission to the public and to its own employees. At the same time, the team’s former leader has been given a new role as the company’s “chief futurist.”
OpenAI confirmed to TechCrunch that the team’s members have now been assigned to other roles. The news was first reported by Platformer.
The disbanded team in question appears to have been formed in September of 2024. Platformer reports that the team was dedicated to promoting “the company’s stated mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.”
An official OpenAI spokesperson described the team thusly: “The Mission Alignment project was a support function to help employees and the public understand our mission and the impact of AI. That work continues throughout the organization.”
In a blog post published Wednesday, Josh Achiam, the former head of OpenAI’s mission alignment team, explained his new role as the company’s chief futurist. “My goal is to support OpenAI’s mission — to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity — by studying how the world will change in response to AI, AGI, and beyond,” Achiam wrote.
Achiam noted that, in his new role, he would be collaborating with Jason Pruet, an OpenAI physicist.
A spokesperson for OpenAI said the rest of the mission alignment team — a group of six or seven people — had subsequently been reassigned to different parts of the company. The spokesperson couldn’t say where exactly the team members had been assigned, but said that they were engaged in similar work in those roles. It was also unclear whether Achiam would have a new team as part of his “futurist” role.
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The spokesperson attributed the disbanding of the team to the kinds of routine reorganizations that occur within a fast-moving company.
OpenAI previously had what it called a “superalignment team” — which was formed in 2023 and focused on studying long-term existential threats posed by AI — but that team was disbanded in 2024.
Achiam’s personal website still lists him as head of mission alignment at OpenAI, and describes him as being interested in ensuring that the “long-term future of humanity is good.” His LinkedIn profile shows he had served as head of mission alignment since September 2024.
Correction: This story originally confused mission alignment with another, similarly named team called alignment. It has been corrected and we apologize for the error.
