OpenAI on the defensive after multiple PR setbacks in one week

OpenAI’s NDA kerfuffle

Around the time Sutskever announced his resignation from OpenAI, a Vox article by Kelsey Piper claimed that OpenAI had imposed strict non-disclosure agreements on departing employees, allegedly threatening to revoke their vested equity if they criticized the company.

In the article, Piper wrote, "I have seen the extremely restrictive off-boarding agreement that contains nondisclosure and non-disparagement provisions former OpenAI employees are subject to. It forbids them, for the rest of their lives, from criticizing their former employer... If a departing employee declines to sign the document, or if they violate it, they can lose all vested equity they earned during their time at the company."

In a tweeted response, Altman wrote, "we have never clawed back anyone's vested equity, nor will we do that if people do not sign a separation agreement (or don't agree to a non-disparagement agreement). vested equity is vested equity, full stop." He wrote that there was a provision about potential equity cancellation in the company's "previous" exit docs, but "it should never have been something we had in any documents or communication," he wrote. "this is on me and one of the few times i've been genuinely embarrassed running openai."

The CEO stated that OpenAI was already in the process of revising its offboarding paperwork to address these concerns, but critics of the company did not seem satisfied by his response. In an update to the Vox article, Piper called for more transparency and wrote, "All of this is highly ironic for a company that initially advertised itself as OpenAI—that is, as committed in its mission statements to building powerful systems in a transparent and accountable manner."

The road ahead

These criticisms are far from the first that OpenAI has seen—we've levied many ourselves as is appropriate for any company whose goal is to create super-intelligent AI models that may end up replacing many humans at their jobs. But the frequency of the incidents over the past week may mark a transition between OpenAI's role as an underdog "AI startup," as it is often described in the press (despite huge deals with Microsoft and potentially Apple) and a corporate behemoth with a perpetual target on its back.

With the stakes high for AI to perform as both a financial success (raising the stock price of Big Tech) and as a productivity tool for users, more eyes than ever will be focused on OpenAI's successes and slip-ups alike.

This article was updated to include Scarlett Johansson's statement.