Ex-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati Testifies About Sam Altman Allegedly Lying to Her

OpenAI’s former CTO Mira Murati just testified under oath that CEO Sam Altman didn’t tell the truth to her, and that his habits interfered with her ability to do her job. The allegation in question, that Altman lied about safety practices, was already public, having featured heavily in a recent New Yorker feature about Altman. Now it’s court testimony. For a few weird days in 2023, Murati was an interim CEO of OpenAI after Altman was briefly fired (And then OpenAI very briefly picked another CEO, Emmett Shear). Reports from this chaotic time paint a picture of a working relationship between Altman and Murati that came under strain when Murati lost Altman’s trust. Behind-the-scenes accounts say she sent memos to the company’s board of directors and Altman himself, questioning Altman’s managerial abilities, and that his termination soon followed. On Wednesday, a video deposition from Murati was shown to the court during the Musk v. Altman court proceedings, in which she testified to the truth of this story. A new model was being prepared for release—which the New Yorker says was GPT-4 Turbo—and in her testimony, as described by the Verge, she said Altman told her OpenAI’s legal depar