OpenAI’s Chief Futurist Is Leaving the Company
OpenAI’s Chief Futurist Is Leaving the Company
OpenAI 首席未来学家即将离职
OpenAI’s chief futurist, Joshua Achiam, notified colleagues on Tuesday that he is leaving the company later this month after nearly nine years, WIRED has learned. Achiam, who previously led a team tasked with upholding the organization’s nonprofit mission, told OpenAI staff that his departure was not motivated by any specific reason, but was something he’s been thinking about for a while.
据《连线》（WIRED）获悉，OpenAI 首席未来学家 Joshua Achiam 周二通知同事，在效力近九年后，他将于本月底离开公司。Achiam 此前曾领导一个负责维护该组织非营利使命的团队。他向 OpenAI 员工表示，他的离职并非出于任何特定原因，而是他已经考虑了一段时间的决定。
“The world is in on the secret now and it feels possible to work on the mission from outside the walls of a frontier lab,” Achiam said in a note to staff obtained by WIRED. “I believe we can get to a world of peace, unprecedented prosperity, and unimaginable possibilities, social and scientific. Whatever I do next, I will continue to work with you on making this vision real.”
“现在全世界都已经知晓了这个秘密，在尖端实验室的围墙之外为这一使命而努力已成为可能，”Achiam 在《连线》获得的一份致员工备忘录中写道。“我相信我们能够实现一个和平、前所未有的繁荣，以及在社会和科学领域拥有无限可能的世界。无论我接下来做什么，我都会继续与你们合作，将这一愿景变为现实。”
OpenAI has not yet announced if anyone will fill Achiam’s role, which sat at the intersection of the company’s AI safety and policy teams, and involved studying the potential harms and benefits caused by the rise of artificial intelligence. Achiam worked with senior company leaders, including global affairs chief Chris Lehane, to advocate for government regulations aligned with OpenAI’s mission: to ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity.
OpenAI 尚未宣布是否会有人接替 Achiam 的职位。该职位处于公司人工智能安全和政策团队的交汇处，涉及研究人工智能崛起所带来的潜在危害与益处。Achiam 曾与包括全球事务主管 Chris Lehane 在内的公司高层领导合作，倡导符合 OpenAI 使命的政府监管政策，即确保通用人工智能（AGI）造福全人类。
OpenAI has reorganized its safety, product, and research teams numerous times since ChatGPT launched in 2022, after which the company grew rapidly from a small research lab into a massive tech company. In 2024, OpenAI announced the formation of a “mission alignment team” led by Achiam that was tasked with upholding the company’s mission. OpenAI disbanded the group in February and announced that Achiam would be taking on a new role as chief futurist.
自 2022 年 ChatGPT 发布以来，OpenAI 已多次重组其安全、产品和研究团队，此后公司从一个小型的研究实验室迅速成长为一家庞大的科技公司。2024 年，OpenAI 宣布成立由 Achiam 领导的“使命一致性团队”（mission alignment team），负责维护公司的使命。OpenAI 在 2 月份解散了该小组，并宣布 Achiam 将担任首席未来学家这一新角色。
In the last year, OpenAI has worked to bridge the gap between its AI research and policy teams as part of an effort to develop rules and standards that anticipate where its technology is headed. As the two departments began collaborating more closely, several OpenAI researchers, including Boaz Barak, Noam Brown, and Adrien Ecoffet say they have become more involved in policy work.
在过去的一年里，OpenAI 一直致力于弥合其人工智能研究团队与政策团队之间的鸿沟，旨在制定能够预见技术发展方向的规则和标准。随着这两个部门开始更紧密地合作，包括 Boaz Barak、Noam Brown 和 Adrien Ecoffet 在内的几位 OpenAI 研究人员表示，他们已更多地参与到政策工作中。
Former White House AI adviser Dean Ball started at OpenAI this week as the company’s head of strategic futures, and he will briefly overlap with Achiam. Ball is also expected to work with researchers and policy leaders in his role.
前白宫人工智能顾问 Dean Ball 本周入职 OpenAI，担任公司战略未来主管，他将与 Achiam 有短暂的工作交接期。预计 Ball 在任职期间也将与研究人员和政策领导者进行合作。
Achiam is the latest safety-focused leader to depart OpenAI, joining a growing list of exits as the company prepares to go public. Jan Leike, who co-led OpenAI’s Superalignment team researching how to keep advanced AI models under human control, left to join Anthropic in 2024.
Achiam 是最新一位离开 OpenAI 的安全领域领导者，随着公司准备上市，离职名单正不断增长。曾共同领导 OpenAI“超级对齐”（Superalignment）团队、研究如何将先进 AI 模型置于人类控制之下的 Jan Leike，已于 2024 年离职并加入 Anthropic。
That same year, head of policy research Miles Brundage and Steven Adler, who led research on dangerous capabilities of AI models, both departed OpenAI to found nonprofits that advocate for AI labs to倡导 AI 实验室遵守严格的安全标准。Andrea Vallone, who led OpenAI’s research on how ChatGPT should respond to users experiencing mental or emotional distress, left to join Leike’s team at Anthropic at the end of 2025.
同年，政策研究主管 Miles Brundage 和负责 AI 模型危险能力研究的 Steven Adler 均离开了 OpenAI，创办了非营利组织，倡导 AI 实验室遵守严格的安全标准。负责领导 OpenAI 关于 ChatGPT 应如何回应处于心理或情绪困扰用户之研究的 Andrea Vallone，则于 2025 年底离职，加入了 Leike 在 Anthropic 的团队。
After joining OpenAI as an intern in 2017, Achiam went on to become a research scientist focused on AI safety. He was known internally as a stalwart defender of OpenAI’s safety-focused mission, but was also controversial for his occasional criticisms of the broader AI safety community.
Achiam 于 2017 年以实习生身份加入 OpenAI，随后成为专注于 AI 安全的研究科学家。他在内部被视为 OpenAI 安全使命的坚定捍卫者，但也因偶尔批评更广泛的 AI 安全社区而引发争议。
Earlier this year, he testified in federal court that he interrupted Elon Musk’s parting speech when he left OpenAI in 2018, remarking that the then-billionaire’s plan to develop AGI at Tesla could come at the expense of safety. Musk allegedly responded by calling Achiam a “jackass,” a moment that Dario Amodei (now the CEO of Anthropic) and David Luan (who went on to become the head of Amazon’s AGI lab) commemorated by gifting Achiam a statue of a golden donkey’s rear end, inscribed with the words, “Never stop being a jackass for safety.”
今年早些时候，他在联邦法院作证时称，他在 2018 年埃隆·马斯克离开 OpenAI 时打断了对方的告别演讲，指出这位当时的亿万富翁在特斯拉开发 AGI 的计划可能会以牺牲安全为代价。据称，马斯克当时回应称 Achiam 是个“蠢货”（jackass）。Dario Amodei（现为 Anthropic 首席执行官）和 David Luan（后来成为亚马逊 AGI 实验室负责人）为了纪念这一时刻，送给 Achiam 一座金色的驴屁股雕像，上面刻着：“为了安全，永远不要停止做一个‘蠢货’。”