A top OpenAI executive defended her company against Elon Musk, a day after the billionaire CEO described the integration of OpenAI’s chatbot technology into Apple iPhones as “creepy spyware.”
“That’s his opinion. Obviously I don’t think so,” Mira Murati, chief technology officer at OpenAI, said onstage at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women dinner in San Francisco on Tuesday, during a wide-ranging interview that also touched on the company’s executive upheaval last year and a potential initial public offering. “We care deeply about the privacy of our users and the safety of our products.”
Under a high-profile deal announced at Apple’s annual developer conference on Monday, Apple will give users of its devices the option of fielding OpenAI’s technology for complex queries for which Apple’s in-house AI would have trouble providing an accurate answer. OpenAI’s technology will be integrated with Apple’s iOS operating system so that it can be used with a number of Apple services.
In a nod to privacy, Apple has said that it won’t share user data with OpenAI and that OpenAI will not train its models with Apple user data.
Musk, the Tesla CEO who cofounded OpenAI and then later became one of its biggest critics after a power struggle, denounced the alliance after it was announced at Apple’s WWDC event earlier this week to great fanfare. He said he would ban employees at his companies from using any Apple devices, such as iPhones and Macs, that had the technology incorporated into their operating systems.
“Apple has no clue what’s actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI. They’re selling you down the river,” Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
In her answers on Tuesday, Murati hammered home the idea that OpenAI is intensely focused on user privacy and security. “We’re trying to be as transparent as possible with the public,” she said, adding: “The biggest risk is that stakeholders misunderstand the technology.”
On Monday, OpenAI added to its executive ranks by naming Sarah Friar, former CEO of neighborhood social network Nextdoor, as its chief financial officer. It also appointed Kevin Weil, previously a product development leader at Twitter and Instagram, as its new chief product officer.
Many in Silicon Valley speculated that the hirings were in preparation for a future initial public offering. However, Murati sidestepped the question, saying: “What it really means is that we are in this next phase in the company,” and that the new executives are bringing new skills and leadership.
Murati also addressed OpenAI’s upheaval in November, when its board briefly ousted CEO Sam Altman for allegedly not being “candid.” She complained that OpenAI, which is controlled by a nonprofit board, lacked enough oversight.
“As we discovered in November with the nonprofit board structure that we had, the nonprofit board structure didn’t have accountability to anybody but themselves,” Murati said, adding that OpenAI now has a largely new board made up of more experienced directors who have long histories at large companies and nonprofits.
