Aleksander Madry is going back to OpenAI months after leaving: 'Turns out it was more of a sabbatical'

MIT professor Aleksander Madry, who left OpenAI a few months ago, says he is returning to the company.

"Turns out that what I thought was leaving OpenAI became more of a sabbatical," Madry posted on X on Oct 19. When he left, he wrote, making AI more useful to people seemed most important, but "we've since entered a different regime of AI progress," one where getting the safety and security challenges of increasingly capable AI right "has to become a central priority." He will work with OpenAI chief scientist Jakub Pachocki.

The post drew 1,700 likes and 230,000 views, with a string of OpenAI staff replying "welcome back."

Madry was the first head of OpenAI's Preparedness team in 2023.