OpenAI reportedly disbanded its preparedness team as part of a 'streamlining' process

As part of a restructuring, OpenAI reportedly disbanded its "preparedness" team that assesses the potential for catastrophic risks with its models, The Financial Times reported. The Sam Altman-led company is said to have made the move at the end of last month, despite the fact that several of its models recently went rogue and hacked the AI tool repository, Hugging Face.

Senior staff within separate teams have now been assigned responsibility for different areas of preparedness like bio and cyber, according to the article. OpenAI described the staff cuts as part of a "streamlining process" ahead of its IPO, after Altman asked employees to cut back on "side quests" and focus on its core ChatGPT business.

OpenAI has put some higher-profile side quests on the chopping block of late, recently eliminating its Sora video generation app that became famously associated with AI "slop." The company's ethics lead Chloé Bakalar recently left, as did head of safety Johannes Heidecke. Those two departures in particularly have led to concerns that the company is ignoring safety in favor of growth, with one AI analyst comparing OpenAI's revolving safety door to a Harry Potter curse.