Helen Toner, who runs Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology and was one of four OpenAI directors who voted in 2023 to fire Sam Altman, said on The Verge’s Decoder podcast that she would make the same call again. Asked whether Altman can be trusted, she said her position is already clear and that if the future rests on trusting any one individual, “we’re pretty screwed.” Toner backs slowing frontier AI by requiring labs to show more confidence in their risk management before they train or release a new model, rather than through a fixed pause. She also said Anthropic’s IPO could strengthen its governance, because the independent board committees that the White House’s voluntary AI accord relies on carry legal weight at a public company.
