OpenAI has appointed Paul M. Nakasone, a retired U.S. Army general and former head of the National Security Agency (NSA), to its board of directors. Nakasone, who led the NSA from 2018 to February 2024, will join OpenAI’s Safety and Security Committee (led by CEO Sam Altman) and will contribute to the company’s efforts to enhance cybersecurity using AI.
Nakasone’s appointment comes amid recent departures of key safety personnel, including co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike, who were outspokenly concerned about the company’s prioritization of safety processes.
OpenAI’s board chair, Bret Taylor, welcomed Nakasone’s expertise, stating that securely built and deployed innovations are crucial to realizing AI’s potential. In response, Nakasone expressed his alignment with OpenAI’s mission: “I look forward to contributing to OpenAI’s efforts to ensure artificial general intelligence is safe and beneficial to people around the world.”
It’s great that OpenAI is appointing a security expert to its board; perhaps we can get some clarity on OpenAI’s definition of “safety.” It would also be great to understand their north star. BTW, is Nagasone really speaking about an imminent release of an OpenAI AGI, or was it just a figure of speech?
Author’s note: This is not a sponsored post. I am the author of this article and it expresses my own opinions. I am not, nor is my company, receiving compensation for it. This work was created with the assistance of various generative AI models.