Your Evening Briefing: OpenAI Staff Threaten to Follow Altman to Microsoft

What began as a curious, largely unexplained announcement on Friday afternoon transformed over the weekend into a human resources firestorm. Sam Altman’s shocking departure as chief executive of OpenAI has led to almost all of his former employees threatening to quit and follow him to Microsoft. That is, they say, unless the current board of OpenAI—the one that showed Altman the door for not being “consistently candid”—resigns. More than 700 of OpenAI’s roughly 770 employees signed a letter to the board stating they are “unable to work for or with people that lack competence, judgment and care for our mission and employees.” So what is the kerfuffle really all about? At the heart of this Silicon Valley drama is a much bigger question than Altman’s next posting: it’s whether artificial intelligence should be looked upon as a commercial opportunity or as a potentially dangerous technology. There seems to be some disagreement .