OpenAI recently changed the core values⁴⁹ listed on its website, putting a new emphasis on developing artificial general intelligence (AGI).

What’s going on here?

OpenAI is shifting its focus more towards creating advanced, human-like AI.

What does this mean?

Previously, OpenAI listed six core values for its employees: Audacious, Thoughtful, Unpretentious, Impact-driven, Collaborative, and Growth-oriented. The website now lists five values, with “AGI focus” being at the top. As the site states, anything not helping with AGI development is out of scope. The other new values are

• Intense and scrappy

• Scale

• Make something people love

• Team spirit

Why should I care?

While OpenAI has said for years it wants to create AGI, the specifics are unclear. In 2018, it described AGI as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work.” Sam Altman has occasionally said that LLMs are just the start of their journey towards AGI.

In recent months, we have seen Open AI go multimodal with rumours about plans to build consumer hardware with AI. At the same time, it’s also looking at a $90B valuation along with significant growth in its revenue. The core value changes along with this recent activity, it’s a safe bet to guess they are advancing to the next stage in their path to AGI (maybe something non-LLMy).

One thing I can’t help but notice is that the previous set of values resembles the dictionary of a research lab, whereas the newer ones are more similar to startup vocabulary.