More ironic still, the OpenAI debacle that has unfolded the past few days is over the management of artificial intelligence, and the human kind is displaying its inadequacies. Sam Altman, the co-founder of OpenAI and widely recognized as the prime mover in the AI revolution, was ousted as CEO of his own company in a boardroom coup last week. Greg Brockman, another co-founder of OpenAI, quit as the start-up’s president after Altman was fired. Emmett Shear, the former CEO of Amazon’s streaming service Twitch, will become OpenAI’s interim CEO, replacing Mira Murati, who was named interim CEO when Altman was fired. The financial markets hate instability. They really hate clown shows. Seldom does a company shoot itself in the foot, shoulder and head so enthusiastically

At least they didn’t hire a transgender performance artist to be the company’s spokesperson. Still, you seldom see ineptitude like this.

The board of the company that introduced ChatGPT was apparently afraid of the speed with which Altman was pushing AI technology. So with visions of “The Terminator” dancing in their heads and convinced that Altman was risking a global catastrophe, they fired him. This was approximately like Apple firing Steve Jobs, or the Muppets firing Jim Henson: it’s a shocking and cataclysmic decision that must be handled with delicacy, diplomacy and care in order to avoid doing permanent harm.

A board of directors’ primary obligation is to its shareholders. OpenAI’s biggest shareholder is Microsoft, which gave Altman & Co. $13 billion to put AI on the fast-track. But the board didn’t give Microsoft a heads-up, not informing it of Altman’s demise until just before the public announcement. Microsoft’s stock dropped after the firing was reported. The announcement blind-sided employees too; now more than 500 employees of OpenAI have signed a letter saying threatening to quit and join Altman at Microsoft unless the board resigns and reappoints him as CEO.

Suddenly worried that Altman and ex-OpenAI loyalists might start their own venture, the board reportedly considered flip-flopping and begging Altman to come back. (Either he said no, or they decided that humiliation was not a wise course.)This is a tech company valued at 90 billion dollars, and it’s being run like a tree-house club. Worse, its product is a powerful, uncharted technology that science fiction writers have been warning could wipe out humanity unless we are very, very careful.

Is this the kind of management we feel secure about handling artificial intelligence?

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