OpenAI Appoints Former NSA Chief Paul Nakasone to Board

(Bloomberg) -- OpenAI appointed retired US Army General Paul Nakasone to its board of directors, tapping his experience in cybersecurity to help the artificial intelligence company protect its technology.

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Nakasone, who formerly led the National Security Agency and the U.S. Cyber Command, will join the board’s Safety and Security Committee, a group focused on critical safety and security decisions at OpenAI, the startup said Thursday in a statement on its website.

“Artificial Intelligence has the potential to have huge positive impacts on people’s lives, but it can only meet this potential if these innovations are securely built and deployed,” Bret Taylor, chair of OpenAI’s board, said in the statement. “General Nakasone’s unparalleled experience in areas like cybersecurity will help guide OpenAI in achieving its mission of ensuring artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity,”

The addition of Nakasone follows OpenAI’s moves earlier this year to bolster the board’s composition. In March, Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman rejoined the company’s board after an independent investigation into the events of his November ouster cleared him of wrongdoing. At the end of the probe, OpenAI added to the board Sue Desmond-Hellmann, who previously was head of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Nicole Seligman, an ex-Sony Entertainment executive; and Instacart CEO Fidji Simo.

“As AI technology becomes more capable on the path to artificial general intelligence, we are becoming more resilient to increasingly sophisticated cyber security threats over time,” the company said in the statement.

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