Schulman has announced he will focus on alignment research at Anthropic, the startup founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers. This research aims to ensure AI systems adhere to human values. Anthropic emphasises "safety at the frontier" in its mission.

Anthropic emerged in 2021, established by a team of former OpenAI employees who departed due to differing views on AI safety practices. Since its inception, Anthropic has positioned itself as a prominent developer of foundation models in the AI industry.

In related news, Greg Brockman, the President of OpenAI, announced via social media platform X that he would be taking the remainder of the year off.

Schulman posted the note he had shared with his OpenAI colleagues regarding his departure on X: “I've made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI. This choice stems from my desire to deepen my focus on AI alignment, and to start a new chapter of my career where I can return to hands-on technical work. I've decided to pursue this goal at Anthropic, where I believe I can gain new perspectives and do research alongside people deeply engaged with the topics I'm most interested in. To be clear, I'm not leaving due to lack of support for alignment research at OpenAI. On the contrary, company leaders have been very committed to investing in this area. My decision is a personal one, based on how I want to focus my efforts in the next phase of my career.

“I joined OpenAI almost 9 years ago as part of the founding team after grad school. It's the first and only company where I've ever worked, other than an internship. It's also been quite a lot of fun. I'm grateful to Sam and Greg for recruiting me back at the beginning, and Mira and Bob for putting a lot of faith in me, bringing great opportunities and helping me successfully navigate various challenges. I'm proud of what we've all achieved together at OpenAI; building an unusual and unprecedented company with a public benefit mission.”

Schulman ended his note thankful to the company he spent many years creating: “I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to participate in such an important part of history and I'm proud of what we've achieved together. I'll still be rooting for you all, even while working elsewhere.”

Following Schulman’s exit, just three of OpenAI’s original 11 founders remain at the company: CEO Sam Altman, President Greg Brockman, and Wojciech Zaremba, the head of language and code generation.

CEO Sam Altman replied to Schulman’s post on X: “Thank you for everything you've done for OpenAI! You are a brilliant researcher, a deep thinker about product and society, and mostly, you are a great friend to all of us. We will miss you tremendously and make you proud of this place.”