OpenAI has disbanded a team aimed at communicating its mission to the public and its own employees. At the same time, the team’s former leader was given a new role as the company’s “chief futurist.”
OpenAI confirmed to TechCrunch that members of the team have now been assigned to other roles. The news was first reported by Platformer.
The disbanded team in question appears to have been formed in September 2024. The platformer reported that the team was dedicated to advancing “the company’s stated mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all humanity.”
An official OpenAI spokesperson describes the team: “The Mission Alignment Project is a support function that helps employees and the public understand our mission and the impact of AI. That work continues across the organization.”
In a blog post published Wednesday, Josh Achiam, former head of OpenAI’s mission coordination team, explained his new role as the company’s chief futurist. “My goal is to support OpenAI’s mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all humanity by studying how the world will change in response to AI, AGI, and more,” Achiam wrote.
Atiam said that in his new role, he will work with OpenAI physicist Jason Pruett.
An OpenAI spokesperson said the remaining members of the mission coordination team, a group of six or seven people, have since been reassigned to other parts of the company. A spokesperson could not say specifically where the team members were assigned, but said they performed similar duties in their roles. It was also unclear whether Achiam would have a new team as part of his role as a “futurist.”
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A spokesperson said the team’s disbandment was due to reorganizations that occur routinely within rapidly changing companies.
OpenAI previously had what it called a “superalignment team,” which was formed in 2023 and focused on researching the long-term existential threats posed by AI, but the team was disbanded in 2024.
Achiam’s personal website still lists him as OpenAI’s mission coordinator, and says he is interested in ensuring “the long-term future of humanity is good.” According to his LinkedIn profile, he had served as mission coordination director since September 2024.
Correction: This article originally confused Mission Alignment with another similarly named team called Alignment. We have corrected the error and apologize for the error.
