OpenAI’s leadership team of supernerds has had another dramatic falling out, reviving divisions about the future of artificial intelligence within the company that’s driving the AI revolution.

Last week, two execs resigned from OpenAI: first, co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, followed shortly by company vet Jan Leike. In a thread on X, Leike wrote that “over the past years, safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products,” and his disagreements with OpenAI’s leadership had recently “reached a breaking point.”

Sutskever and Leike are deeply concerned about AI’s long-term threat to humanity. They co-led the company’s superalignment team, which was formed last year to study the existential risks posed by artificial intelligence that’s smarter than humans.

• “Alignment” is the concept that describes whether a machine has the same goals as its human creators.
• Making sure AI and humans are ~aligned~ becomes extremely important when the AI is superintelligent because, without alignment, the downside would be a real bummer: human extinction.

It’s evident that OpenAI’s top brass are not aligned about the problem of alignment. In explaining why he quit, Leike wrote that his safety team “has been sailing against the wind” and wasn’t provided enough resources to do its work.

The pressure mounts on Sam Altman

Remember, last November the CEO was fired by the board before employees mounted a revolt and Altman was reinstated, with even more power, less than a week later.

Altman has been criticized by the AI safety camp for prioritizing the commercial side of his AI empire—like releasing a Her-like voice assistant last week—without paying enough attention to the risks.

In response to Leike’s resignation thread, Altman wrote, “He’s right we have a lot more to do; we are committed to doing it.” Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman elaborated on their approach to AI safety in a joint post on Saturday.

Bottom line: Some of OpenAI’s most tenured and respected leaders are jumping ship because they believe Altman is recklessly steering it in a dangerous direction.—NF

Snacks?

Sunglasses?

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Iran’s president was killed in a helicopter crash. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Iran’s foreign minister were found dead at the site of a helicopter crash in a remote northwestern region of the country. Raisi was an ally of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, espoused hard-line, anti-Western views, and was infamous for his role in the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988. Raisi’s death will “set off a fierce scramble for power” in the Islamic Republic, The Atlantic writes.

Israeli centrist leader says he’ll quit if no postwar plan presented. Benny Gantz, one of three members of Israel’s war cabinet, gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an ultimatum: Either you present a plan for what happens after the war in Gaza, or I quit in three weeks. The ultimatum reveals widening divisions within Israel’s leadership. Last week, the third member of the war cabinet, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, also criticized Netanyahu for not presenting a postwar blueprint. Gantz put forth a six-point plan of his own, but Netanyahu said it would mean Israel losing the war.

The WNBA is investigating a $100,000 sponsorship deal for players. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority wants to give every member of the Las Vegas Aces a $100,000 sponsorship for this year and next, and all the players have to do is play basketball. The league is looking into the arrangement to ensure the deals are not a way to circumvent the salary cap—sponsorships like this can’t be arranged through the team, although the tourism agency said they followed the WNBA’s rules and went through each player’s agent. According to Spotrac, a website that tracks athlete salaries, $100,000 is greater than the average annual value of eight Aces contracts.

A beer industry that has watched its market share get smoked by cannabis has rolled up its sleeves to exploit a legal loophole, Bloomberg reports.

Canned drinks without a drop of alcohol are getting customers buzzed because they are infused with THC derived from hemp, which keeps them compliant with federal laws and allows for shipping across state lines. These weed drinks have become so popular that even Bon Appétit and others offer a list of their favorites.

A happy accident for beer sellers: The loophole was created by the 2018 Farm Bill, which was intended to allow hemp to be grown for the production of things like clothing and car parts. But like the most resourceful person in your freshman dorm, the beer business found a way to use something seemingly innocuous to get people high.

And just like the uncool RA, states are knocking on the door. New York banned drinks with more than 1 milligram of THC per serving last summer, and Connecticut is now attempting the same. Twenty other states are lobbying for a review of the Farm Bill to enable the banning of the drinks.

The beer industry is fighting back, because…it has to. By 2027, beer sales are expected to plunge to 33% of the US alcoholic beverage market from 45% in 2017, per Bloomberg Intelligence.—DL

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For the first time in ages, it appears that neither the sun nor the moon is doing anything especially cool this week. Here’s what else is going on…

Deliberations in Donald Trump’s hush money trial could begin Thursday: That is, unless the former president decides to testify, which he said he planned to do before the trial started. “For Trump to testify would be a really dangerous decision,” criminal defense lawyer Tama Kudman told the WSJ, citing the possibility that the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s testimony could turn the trial into a “referendum on his credibility” and steer the jury’s focus away from any holes in the prosecution’s case.

“Perhaps the most important earnings report of the year.”: That’s what Jim Cramer says about Nvidia’s report scheduled to drop on Wednesday. The company that beats estimates the way the Harlem Globetrotters beat the Washington Generals is considered a barometer for the entire AI industry, since it controls 65% of the AI data center chip market, according to TechInsights. Analysts are expecting the company to report ~$24.5 billion in Q1 revenue, which would be a YoY increase of 240%.

The three-day Microsoft Build event will begin Tuesday in Seattle. The company that brought the world Clippy is expected to announce its latest advancements in generative AI one week after OpenAI and Google revealed upgrades to their AI assistants.

Everything else…

• The NBA’s conference finals will start on Tuesday, with the Boston Celtics hosting the Indiana Pacers in the East. On Wednesday, the Dallas Mavericks face the Minnesota Timberwolves in the West.
• Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga makes its much-anticipated debut in theaters on Friday. The prequel to 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road stars Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth and has received rave reviews.
• Memorial Day Weekend kicks off on Friday. Sunday brings the Indy 500, the Monaco Grand Prix, and the start of the French Open.

Quote: “My behavior on that video is inexcusable.”

Sean “Diddy” Combs apologized after a video released on Friday appeared to show him physically assaulting Cassie Ventura, his girlfriend when the incident took place in 2016. “I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now,” he said. Combs and Ventura settled a lawsuit she filed last November, but Diddy still faces a range of legal threats, including five other civil lawsuits related to sexual misconduct and a federal investigation that resulted in his homes being searched in March.

Stat: Ed Dwight, NASA’s first Black astronaut candidate in the 1960s who never made a trip to space, had his dreams come true at the age of 90. Dwight became the oldest person to travel to space, surpassing the record set by William Shatner in 2021, when he and five others left the atmosphere on a Blue Origin flight on Sunday and touched down safely in a West Texas desert. It’s another step forward for the burgeoning space tourism industry—Virgin Galactic has its own six-person commercial flight scheduled for June 8.

Read: The beauty of concrete. (Works in Progress)