A firing like that is an emergency measure, and we don't really have AI emergencies. Consider that just 8 months after public launch, there have been congressio

A firing like that is an emergency measure, and we don't really have AI emergencies. Consider that just 8 months after public launch, there have been congressional hearings in the US and a summit in London about whether this technology needs a non-proliferation agreement - and there's just been an emergency that requires jettisoning the project leader. The uncertainty is a bit alarming. What is still very unclear is what removing Altman protects or preserves about the integrity of OpenAI and its work. The unexpected outcome is that by fragmenting OpenAI with firings and resignations, it will spread the core research know how more broadly, so if the firing were over an AI governance/safety concern, it might delay it a couple months, but could have the opposite effect. It's not Altman himself, it's the instability in developing the tech that is the big deal. Personally, I suspect it's a bit of a valley palace intrigue gone wrong, where someone supported some of the upstream orchestration that resulted in this outcome, but as far as why this is important, it really is the tech.