New Video from AI in Context: The Fall and Rise of Sam Altman

If you want to skip straight to the video, here it is!

AI in Context is excited to be back with our fourth video! For those just hearing from us, we make videos for 80,000 Hours, telling stories about transformative AI. Check out our channel here.

What’s in the video?

On November 17, 2023, OpenAI’s board announced that Sam Altman was no longer CEO. Chaos ensued: Sam’s self-styled government-in-exile, an employee revolt, key board members ousted, and Sam reinstated within a mere five days. At the time, no one knew the full story. We tell you what we know now.

Here’s what else you’ll find:

• A beat-by-beat of almost everything in the dossier used to get Sam fired, and who contributed the evidence.
• An interview with an ex-employee who was there during the firing.
• Details that didn't make it into the books or the news coverage, from off the record conversations with people close to OpenAI
• The one or two concrete steps you can take if this story leaves you wanting to act.

If that sounds exciting to you, watch the video here!

Behind the scenes

We had a blast filming this video, even when Aric had to try on over 30 sweaters before we found one that looked right on camera! We also enjoyed bringing back a gameboard to literally game out the board drama. Our operations associate Sage did essentially two minutes straight of burpees to get the last stop-motion animation sequence, hiding under the table then popping up to move one tile at a time.

There are so many stories here we didn’t get to tell. We reached out to several former OpenAI board members and senior execs involved in the story, but weren’t able to secure interviews with them.

We also wish we could have gotten into Greg Brockman’s arc from OpenAI co-founder to Trump and anti-AI Safety SuperPAC, and Elon Musk's journey from OpenAI's founding benefactor to the man suing it. Too many videos to make, you know?  

Why Sam Altman?

Our previous videos covering the AI 2027 report, xAI’s MechaHitler incident, and arguments from the book If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies dive into real and hypothetical scenarios where AI capabilities outpace human control. While making these videos, certain questions never got fully addressed: What holds AI makers accountable? Is it enough?

I remember being glued to Twitter when Sam Altman was fired. Maybe you were too. At the time, it was unclear exactly what had happened.

What really went down in those five days, and what does it tell us about the leaders racing to build superintelligence?

This is the story of how OpenAI's board fired the most famous person in AI, and how, five days later, the board members were the ones out the door. It turned out to be a public test of how OpenAI’s power checks would function; which… turns out, was not that well.

How you can get involved

We made a page to share concrete ways our viewers can act on the issues we bring up.

If you like the video and want to help it reach more people, send it to someone you think would enjoy and leave a comment or like. These steps really help us get the algorithm to show it to more people.

We’d also love it if you'd tell us what you think after watching: what worked, what didn’t, and what you’d like to see next time.

We hope this video gets you thinking about corporate governance and we’re excited to see what you all do with this information!

Channel updates

We’ve been seriously blown away by our community’s support.

At just 11 months old, AI in Context has released four videos, with our first three viewed over 16 million (!) times. We even won a Webby People’s Voice award in Best Documentary Storytelling! We’ve got new videos in the works and are stoked to be growing our team. Most of all, we’re thrilled that our content is shaping public conversation about transformative AI.

Because of you, our stories have reached millions. Thank you.