OpenAI's head of trust and safety Dave Willner quits. Here is why

Citing the pressures of the job on his family life, OpenAI’s head of trust and safety Dave Willner on Friday announced his exit from the company. Willner said in a LinkedIn post that he would be available for advisory work.

He said he decided to quit because the demands of his job increased, which affected his personal life. “Anyone with young children and a super intense job can relate to that tension, I think, and these past few months have really crystallised for me that I was going to have to prioritise one or the other,” he said in the post.

After stints at Airbnb and Facebook, Willner took over his role at OpenAI in February last year.

Trust and security departments have taken a significant role at tech companies such as OpenAI, Twitter, Alphabet and Meta as they try to curb the spread of hate speech and misinformation  on their platforms.

“I’ve moved teaching the kids to swim and ride their bikes to the top of my OKRs (objectives and key results) this summer.”

OpenAI, whose AI chatbot ChatGPT, has gained immense popularity with users, has said it depends on its trust and safety team to build “the processes and capabilities to prevent misuse and abuse of AI technologies”.

Wilner had previously stated that there is a need to balance the "obligation to mitigate serious risks with allowing diverse values to flourish".

In May, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and other leaders of the AI industry called for additional regulation while testifying at a  congressional hearing. Altman called for the creation of a new agency, which would be tasked with issuing licenses for AI technology—licenses he said should be rescinded if firms fail to comply with safety standards.

(With inputs from agencies)