OpenAI Chief Futurist Joshua Achiam Resigns: AGI Mission Extends Beyond Laboratory Walls

Jinse Finance reports that OpenAI Chief Futurist Joshua Achiam announced he will leave the company, with his last day being the 24th of this month. He publicly posted on X a farewell letter originally sent to internal Slack, stating that there is no specific reason for his departure, nor was it triggered by any particular point in time; after thinking about it for a while, he believes he can now continue advancing the safe AGI mission outside of frontier labs.

Achiam joined OpenAI as an intern in 2017 and has since been engaged in AI safety research for a long time, previously serving as the head of the Mission Alignment team. In February of this year, after OpenAI disbanded the Mission Alignment team, he transitioned to the role of Chief Futurist, responsible for studying the impact of AGI and stronger AI on society, policy, and safety.

In his farewell letter, he said the past nine years have been like "centuries of change compressed into a decade"; the future depends on the collective choices made by all parties regarding AGI and superintelligence.

OpenAI has not yet announced who will succeed him in this role. Achiam is another safety-focused executive to leave OpenAI in recent years.