Mira Murati tells the court that she couldn’t trust Sam Altman’s words

Mira Murati, OpenAI’s former CTO, has testified under oath that CEO Sam Altman lied to her about the safety standards for a new AI model. In a video deposition shown during the ongoing Musk v. Altman trial on Wednesday, Murati said Altman falsely stated that OpenAI’s legal department determined a new AI model did not need to go through the company’s deployment safety board. “As you understand it, was Mr. Altman telling the truth when he made that statement to you?” Murati was asked in the deposition. “No,” Murati said.

Murati said that during her tenure at OpenAI, Altman made her work more difficult. Her criticism “is completely management related,” she said. “I had an incredibly hard job to do in an organization that was very complex. I was asking Sam to lead, and lead with clarity, and not undermine my ability to do my job.”

The safety situation around one of OpenAI’s GPT models was an example. Murati testified that after speaking with Altman, she checked with Jason Kwon, who joined OpenAI in 2021 as its general counsel and is now the company’s chief strategy officer. Murati said that there was “misalignment” between what Kwon and Altman said: “I confirmed that what Jason was saying and what Sam was saying were not the same thing.”