AI Safety Newsletter #53: An Open Letter Attempts to Block OpenAI Restructuring

Former OpenAI employees and experts published an open letter asking California and Delaware officials to block OpenAI's restructuring from a nonprofit organization into a for-profit company (a Public Benefit Corporation, which balances profit with public benefit). The letter argues that the restructuring would eliminate governance safeguards designed to prevent profit motives from influencing decisions about AGI (artificial general intelligence, highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work), and would shift control away from a nonprofit board accountable to the public toward a board partly accountable to shareholders.