OpenAI's Head of Trust and Safety Resigns Amid Growing Job Pressure Over Family Life

Trust and safety departments have taken on a high-profile role in technology companies such as OpenAI, Twitter, Alphabet and Meta.

By Reuters | Updated: 21 July 2023 16:11 IST

OpenAI's Head of Trust and Safety Resigns Amid Growing Job Pressure Over Family Life

Photo Credit: Reuters

Dave Willner took over his role at OpenAI in February last year

Highlights

Willner attributed his decision to quit to growing demands from his job
Microsoft-backed OpenAI has stormed the world
Trust and safety departments have taken on a high-profile role

OpenAI's head of trust and safety Dave Willner is leaving the company, he said in a LinkedIn post on Friday, citing the pressures of the job on his family life and saying he would be available for advisory work.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to questions about Willner's exit.

Trust and safety departments have taken on a high-profile role in technology companies such as OpenAI, Twitter, Alphabet and Meta as they seek to limit the spread of hate speech, misinformation and other harmful content on their platforms.

Samsung Wins Patent for a Tri-Fold Smartphone With Specialised Barrier Layer for Improved Durability

At the same time, fears AI will run out of control have risen.

Willner took over his role at OpenAI in February last year, after working at Airbnb and Facebook. He attributed his decision to quit to growing demands from his job affecting his family life.

"Anyone with young children and a super intense job can relate to that tension, I think, and these past few months have really crystallised for me that I was going to have to prioritise one or the other," he said in the post.

AI Being Misused for Creating Malicious Software, Says Canadian Cyber Official

"I've moved teaching the kids to swim and ride their bikes to the top of my OKRs (objectives and key results) this summer."

Microsoft-backed OpenAI, whose AI chatbot ChatGPT, has stormed the world, has said it depends on its trust and safety team to build "the processes and capabilities to prevent misuse and abuse of AI technologies".

Google Is Testing AI Tools That Can Generate News Articles

© Thomson Reuters 2023

Will the Nothing Phone 2 serve as the successor to the Phone 1, or will the two co-exist? We discuss the company's recently launched handset and more on the latest episode of Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.