I am excited to be joining the OpenAI nonprofit board, serving on the Safety and Security Committee to support safety oversight.

Based on the recent trajectory of capabilities and the continued difficulty of alignment, I now believe there is a meaningful risk that rapid acceleration in AI capabilities leads to catastrophic and irreversible loss of control in the very near term. I do not think that the AI industry in general, including OpenAI, is currently on track to reduce this risk to an acceptable level. I’m joining because I believe that if OpenAI rises to the occasion we could significantly reduce risk.

The SSC has an important and challenging role in overseeing risk management at OpenAI, and I hope to help provide expertise and assistance in a critical moment. My joining is not an endorsement or criticism of OpenAI's safety practices in particular; I hope that all frontier companies strengthen safety oversight and I am excited to work on this at OpenAI. I believe that the rest of the world should judge OpenAI, and all AI developers, by externally verifiable behavior and results.

In the rest of this post, I'll explain why I believe loss-of-control risk is now acute [...]

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

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First published:
September 9th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/82z6FvbYRdjYjqigK/personal-statement-on-joining-the-openai-board

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Personal statement on joining the OpenAI board” by paulfchristiano

LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Personal statement on joining the OpenAI board” by paulfchristiano