Regulatory scrutiny Although regulatory scrutiny is nothing new for OpenAI and the encompassing artificial intelligence sector, the letter from Democrat lawmakers was prompted by whistleblower reports of lax safety standards for GPT-4 Omni to ensure the market release of the product was not delayed.

Related: Synchron, ChatGPT to help paralyzed patients chat and text again

OpenAI whistleblowers also claimed that efforts to bring safety concerns to management were met with retaliation and allegedly illegal non-disclosure agreements, driving the whistleblowers to file a complaint with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in June 2024.

Shortly after, in July, tech giants Microsoft and Apple renounced their memberships for OpenAI’s board due to increased regulatory scrutiny. The decision not to take up a board seat came despite Microsoft’s $13-billion investment in OpenAI in 2023.

Existential fears persist Former OpenAI employee William Saunders recently revealed that he quit the company because he had felt the ongoing research at OpenAI might pose an existential threat to humanity, likening the potential trajectory of OpenAI to the infamous crash of the RMS Titanic in 1912.

Saunders clarified that he was not concerned about the current iteration of OpenAI’s ChatGPT large language model but was more concerned with future versions of ChatGPT and the potential development of advanced superhuman intelligence.

The whistleblower argued that employees working within the artificial intelligence sector have a right to warn the public about potentially dangerous capabilities exhibited by the rapid development of synthetic intelligence.