OpenAI Hires Head of Readiness, Who Will Make $555,000

OpenAI is hiring a “head of preparedness” to reduce harms associated with technology, such as user mental health and cybersecurity, CEO Sam Altman wrote in a statement. Message SATURDAY. The position will pay $555,000 per year, plus equity, according to the job list.

“It will be a stressful job and you will dive into the deep end almost immediately,” Altman said.

OpenAI’s move to hire a chief security officer comes amid growing concerns from companies about the risks of AI to their operations and reputation. A November analysis Annual filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission by financial data and analytics firm AlphaSense revealed that in the first 11 months of the year, 418 companies worth at least $1 billion cited reputational damage associated with AI risk factors. These reputational risks include AI datasets that display biased information or compromise security. Reports of AI-related reputational damage increased 46% from 2024, the analysis found.

“Models are improving rapidly and are now capable of many great things, but they are also starting to present real challenges,” Altman said in the social media post.

“If you are interested in helping the world understand how to equip cybersecurity defenders with cutting-edge capabilities while ensuring attackers cannot use them for harmful purposes, ideally by making all systems more secure, and similarly how we unlock biological capabilities and even gain confidence in the security of running systems that can self-improve, please consider applying,” he added.

Former OpenAI Readiness Lead Aleksander Madry was reassigned last year to a role related to AI reasoning, with AI security being a related part of the job.

OpenAI’s efforts to address the dangers of AI

Founded in 2015 as a nonprofit organization with the intention of using AI to improve and benefit humanity, OpenAI has, in the eyes of some of its former leaders, struggled to prioritize its commitment to safe technology development. The company’s former vice president of research, Dario Amodei, accompanied by his sister Daniela Amodei and several other researchers, left OpenAI in 2020, in part because she was concerned that the company was prioritizing business success over security. Amodei founded Anthropic the following year.

OpenAI has faced several wrongful death lawsuits this year, ChatGPT allegedly encouraged user delusions and conversations with the bot were linked to some users’ suicide. A New York Times investigation published in November revealed nearly 50 cases of ChatGPT users having mental health crises while in conversation with the bot.

OpenAI said in August that its security features could “degrade” following lengthy conversations between users and ChatGPT, but the company has made changes to improve how its models interact with users. He created a council of eight people earlier this year to advise the company on guardrails intended to promote user well-being and has ChatGPT updated to better respond to sensitive conversations and increase access to crisis hotlines. Earlier this month, the company grants announced to fund research into the intersection of AI and mental health.

The tech company also acknowledged it needs enhanced security measures, saying in a statement blog post this month, some of its upcoming models could pose a “high” cybersecurity risk as AI rapidly advances. The company is taking steps, such as training models to not respond to requests compromising cybersecurity and improving monitoring systems, to mitigate these risks.

“We have a solid basis for measuring growing capabilities,” Altman wrote Saturday. “But we are entering a world where we need a more nuanced understanding and measurement of how these capabilities could be misused, and how we can limit these harms both in our products and in the world, so that we can all reap the enormous benefits.”