Jan Leike, a leading AI researcher who recently resigned from OpenAI, has joined Anthropic, a rival of OpenAI, to lead a new “superalignment” team. Leike had publicly criticized OpenAI’s approach to AI safety before his resignation. His new team at Anthropic will focus on various aspects of AI safety and security, including scalable oversight, weak-to-strong generalization, and automated alignment research.
Leike’s team at Anthropic is similar in mission to OpenAI’s recently dissolved Superalignment team, which he co-led. The Superalignment team aimed to solve the core technical challenges of controlling superintelligent AI in the next four years but often found itself hamstrung by OpenAI’s leadership.
Anthropic, led by CEO Dario Amodei, a former VP of research at OpenAI, has often positioned itself as more safety-focused than OpenAI. Amodei reportedly split with OpenAI over a disagreement about the company’s growing commercial focus. He brought several ex-OpenAI employees, including OpenAI’s former policy lead Jack Clark, to launch Anthropic.
Read more: techcrunch.com