Just Now, OpenAI's Chief Futurist Departed, Once Called a Jackass by Musk
Just now, OpenAI's Chief Futurist, Joshua Achiam, announced his departure from the company via X. Having joined as a 25-year-old intern in 2017, he spent nine years at OpenAI, evolving from an AI safety research scientist to leading the Mission Alignment team. Earlier this year, that team was dissolved, and Achiam transitioned to the newly created role of Chief Futurist, positioned at the intersection of AI safety and policy to study AGI's long-term risks and opportunities.
In his departure statement, Achiam called his time a "graduation," reflecting on the immense progress from AI that couldn't converse to systems solving scientific problems. He expressed optimism about a future of peace, prosperity, and possibility, closing with "To safe AGI."
His tenure was notably marked by a 2018 incident where he publicly challenged Elon Musk—then still with OpenAI—on safety compromises if Musk pursued AGI at Tesla, leading Musk to call him a "jackass." This became an internal legend, with colleagues later giving him a trophy inscribed, "To safety, never stop being that jackass."
Achiam's exit follows a pattern of prominent safety and alignment experts leaving OpenAI, including Jan Leike and others who joined rivals like Anthropic or started non-profits. His departure coincides with OpenAI's internal efforts to more tightly integrate its research and policy teams, and the recent hiring of former White House AI advisor Dean Ball.
Achiam did not cite a specific reason for leaving but indicated it was a long-considered decision, stating the mission to ensure AGI benefits humanity can now be advanced beyond the "frontier lab's" walls.
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