OpenAI reportedly disbanded its preparedness team

According to the Financial Times, OpenAI disbanded its preparedness team at the end of last month. The job of the preparedness team was to assess if models posed serious risks and develop ways to mitigate those risks. (You know, like the possibility that it could go rogue and hack another company.) OpenAI spokesperson Kayla Wood denied that claim, saying in a statement to The Verge that “We have not disbanded the Preparedness team. We have strong research leaders across cybersecurity, biological and chemical, and AI self-improvement capabilities, all reporting to Saachi Jain, our head of safety.” According to FT, responsibility has instead been divided up for specific areas like bio and cyber, then moved into existing teams. This is the latest change at the company, which has been in upheaval as it heads toward what is expected to be a massive IPO. Over the last few years, it’s slowly torn down its more reach-led model, dissolving its AGI readiness and superalignment teams. Ethics lead Chloé Bakalar, chief futurist Josh Achiam, and head of safety Johannes Heidecke have all also left recently, leading some critics like Jan Leike, who resigned from OpenAI in 2024, to tell FT that the company was ignoring safety in favor of creating “shiny products.” The head of the preparedness team, Dylan Scandinaro, who was poached from Anthropic in February, will now focus on the implications of “recursive self-improving” AI. Update, August 18th: Added response from OpenAI.