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Helen Toner

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Helen Toner
Born1992 (age 31–32)
Melbourne, Australia
EducationUniversity of Melbourne B.Sc. Chemical Engineering (2014)
Georgetown University M.A. Security Studies (2021)
OccupationDirector of strategy
EmployerCenter for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET)
Known forFormer board member of OpenAI
Websitecset.georgetown.edu/staff/helen-toner/

Helen Toner is an Australian researcher, and the director of strategy at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. She was a board member of OpenAI when CEO Sam Altman was fired.[1][2]

Early life and education

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Toner was born in 1992 in Melbourne, Australia to two doctors.[3] She graduated from the University of Melbourne in 2014 with a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering. She participated in UN Youth, an organization that provides student engagement in international diplomacy simulations.[4][5] She was introduced to the effective altruism movement while a university student in Melbourne.[4] In 2018, she spent nine-months in Beijing studying Chinese and working as a research affiliate on AI and defense for Oxford University's Center for the Governance of AI.[6] From 2019 to 2021, she attended the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and graduated with an M.A. in security studies.[7]

Career

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Early career

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After graduating, Toner worked with GiveWell (a charity evaluator co-founded by Holden Karnofsky) and Open Philanthropy, an initiative co-founded by Dustin Moskovitz and Karnofsky.[4] At GiveWell, she researched AI policy issues, including its military applications and on the influence of geopolitics on the development of AI.[6][8] In May 2017, Toner recommended a grant of $1.5 million by Open Philanthropy to the UCLA School of Law to "support a fellowship, research, and meetings on governance and policy issues related to advanced artificial intelligence."[9] In August, she recommended a grant of $260,000 to former Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) in August 2017 to support the publication of a manuscript on potential risks from advanced technologies.[10]

Center for Security and Emerging Technology

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In January 2019, Toner was appointed as the director of strategy of the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) think tank with the Walsh School at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. CSET was established through a $55 million over five years grant to Georgetown by Open Philanthropy.[11] In March 2022, she was appointed the full-time director of strategy and foundational research grants. She continued her work at CSET, advising policymakers on AI policy and strategy, during and after her tenure on the board of OpenAI.[12] She also studied China's AI industry and has co-written articles in Foreign Affairs.[4][13][14]

An October 2023 paper Artificial Intelligence and Costly Signals co-authored with Andrew Imbrie and Owen J. Daniels was reportedly a source of tension between Toner and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman over its inclusion of criticism about the launch of ChatGPT.[6] Altman reportedly complained that the paper criticised OpenAI's efforts to keep its technology safe while praising the approach taken by rival company Anthropic. Altman reportedly called Toner and said that her paper "could cause problems" due to the Federal Trade Commission's investigation into OpenAI's data collection.[15]

OpenAI

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In late 2021, Toner was invited by Holden Karnofsky to replace him on the board of OpenAI.[4] OpenAI is owned by investors including Microsoft, but the organization has retained its nonprofit governance structure, making board members accountable to the organization's altruistic goals, rather than shareholders.[16]

In October 2023 she published the report "Decoding Intentions: Artificial Intelligence and Costly Signals" with two co-authors, writing[17]

OpenAI has also drawn criticism for many other safety and ethics issues related to the launches of ChatGPT and GPT-4, including regarding copyright issues, labor conditions for data annotators, and the susceptibility of their products to “jailbreaks” that allow users to bypass safety controls.

After the paper’s publication, Altman tried to push out Toner because he thought the paper was critical of the company.[5]

On November 17, 2023, Toner along with three other board members voted to remove Sam Altman as CEO of OpenAI. The board's stated reason was that Altman was "not consistently candid in his communications” with the board,[18] and was influenced by perceptions that Altman was manipulating board members for his own gain.[19] Four days later, in a deal reached between OpenAI's board and Sam Altman, Toner, Tasha McCauley and Ilya Sutskever would leave the board to be replaced by former Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers and Bret Taylor, and Altman would be reinstated as CEO.[20][21]

In May 2024, in a podcast, while explaining the board's rationale for firing Altman, she claimed that he had misled the board "on multiple occasions" about its existing safety processes, including withholding information, wilfully mispresenting things happening at the company and outright lying to the board.[22] She claimed that the board hadn't been informed about the launch of ChatGPT, and found out about its release through the social media platform Twitter. She also noted that Altman hadn't informed the board that he owned the OpenAI Startup Fund, a venture capital he made management decisions on even though he had claimed "to be an independent board member with no financial interest in the company."[6]

Personal life

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Toner is married to a German scientist and has one child.[23]

References

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  1. ^ Taylor, Josh (2023-11-23). "Who is Helen Toner the Australian woman ousted from the board of OpenAI?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-05-30.
  2. ^ Mascarenhas, Natasha (November 21, 2023). "Altman Argued With OpenAI Board Member Toner Before Ouster". The Information.
  3. ^ Ghaffary, Shirin (August 1, 2024). "DC Welcomes Ex-OpenAI Board Member After Sam Altman Drama". Bloomberg Businessweek.
  4. ^ a b c d e "Aussie altruist at the heart of the OpenAI imbroglio". Australian Financial Review. November 21, 2023.
  5. ^ a b Metz, Cade; Mickle, Tripp; Isaac, Mike (2023-11-21). "Before Altman's Ouster, OpenAI's Board Was Divided and Feuding". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-11-22.
  6. ^ a b c d Murgia, Madhumita (2 August 2024). "Helen Toner on the OpenAI coup: 'It was about trust and accountability'". Financial Times. Retrieved 19 September 2024. (subscription required)
  7. ^ Hodgson, Camilla; Hammond, George (November 22, 2023). "Who were the OpenAI board members that sacked Sam Altman?". Financial Times.
  8. ^ Wilson, Cam (2023-11-21). "Who is Helen Toner? Meet the 30-something Australian OpenAI board member who voted out Sam Altman". Crikey. Retrieved 2023-11-22.
  9. ^ "UCLA School of Law — AI Governance". Open Philanthropy. Retrieved 2024-09-19.
  10. ^ "Center for a New American Security — Technological Risks and National Security". Open Philanthropy. Retrieved 2024-09-19.
  11. ^ "Georgetown University — Center for Security and Emerging Technology". Open Philanthropy. Retrieved 2024-09-19.
  12. ^ "Helen Toner". Center for Security and Emerging Technology. Retrieved 2024-09-19.
  13. ^ Remco Zwetsloot; Helen Toner; Jeffrey Ding (16 November 2018). "Beyond the AI Arms Race: America, China, and the Dangers of Zero-Sum Thinking". Foreign Affairs. ISSN 0015-7120. Wikidata Q123517027.
  14. ^ Helen Toner; Jenny Xiao; Jeffrey Ding (2 June 2023). "The Illusion of China's AI Prowess: Regulating AI Will Not Set America Back in the Technology Race". Foreign Affairs. ISSN 0015-7120. Wikidata Q123517054.
  15. ^ Metz, Cade; Mickle, Tripp; Isaac, Mike (21 November 2023). "Before Altman's Ouster, OpenAI's Board Was Divided and Feuding". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 September 2024.
  16. ^ Confino, Paolo (November 21, 2023). "OpenAI's 'unusual' board can make unilateral decisions without asking permission from anyone—like deep-pocketed backer Microsoft and Satya Nadella". Fortune. Retrieved 2023-12-17.
  17. ^ Andrew Imbrie; Owen Daniels; Helen Toner (1 October 2023), Decoding Intentions: Artificial Intelligence and Costly Signals (PDF), Wikidata Q123517123
  18. ^ Montgomery, Blake; Anguiano, Dani (2023-11-18). "OpenAI fires co-founder and CEO Sam Altman for allegedly lying to company board". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-12-17.
  19. ^ "OpenAI leaders warned of abusive behavior before Sam Altman's ouster". Washington Post. 2023-12-08. Retrieved 2023-12-18.
  20. ^ "Sam Altman Returns as OpenAI CEO in Chaotic Win for Microsoft". Bloomberg. November 22, 2023 – via Bloomberg.com.
  21. ^ Mickle, Tripp; Metz, Cade; Isaac, Mike; Weise, Karen (9 December 2023). "Inside OpenAI's Crisis Over the Future of Artificial Intelligence". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 September 2024.
  22. ^ Lawler, Richard (2024-05-29). "Former OpenAI board member explains why they fired Sam Altman". The Verge. Retrieved 2024-06-01.
  23. ^ Murgia, Madhumita (2 August 2024). "Helen Toner on the OpenAI coup: 'It was about trust and accountability'". Financial Times.
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