Two months ago, a long-abandoned RedditAn American social news and discussion website. It has 1.66 billion monthly users worldwide. account under the name "samaltman" winked back into life. Under a post on the subredditA message board or forum about a particular topic on the website Reddit. r/singularity, it commented: "AGIArtificial general intelligence. The intelligence of machines that allows them to comprehend, learn, and perform intellectual tasks much like humans. has been achieved internally". After a flurry of interest, it edited the comment, claiming it had all been a joke.

It was not long afterwards that Sam Altman, CEOThe Chief Executive Officer is the highest ranking person in a company. They are responsible for making decisions about the company's future. of OpenAIAn American artificial intelligence company. It says its mission is to "benefit all of humanity". , was suddenly ousted from his position by the company's board of directorsA committee that supervises what an organisation or company does. , led by its chief scientist Ilya Sutskever. No explanation was given for the move and within days Altman was back in post.

We still know little about this brief power struggle. Some are wondering if Altman's reddit comment holds the key to the mystery.

In recent years, OpenAI has gone from strength to strength, releasing groundbreaking software like DALL-E and ChatGPTAn Artificial Intelligence chatbot released in November 2022. . Over a million people signed up to ChatGPT in the first five days.¹

But beneath the surface, a rift was growing. Journalists with contacts in OpenAI say the board of directors was increasingly scared of what Altman was doing, and especially of what he was doing without telling them.²

That is why some think the real cause of this sudden palace coupWhen an individual or group takes control of government by illegal means, including by violence. was that Altman had secretly developed something much more powerful than the board could stomach: artificial general intelligence, as he announced on his reddit account.

The programme in question, called Q*, is thought to be a breakthrough towards an AI that would have human-like cognitive abilities but on a much greater scale. This is the threat that AI experts have been warning about.

One of those fuelling the speculation is Elon MuskA South African-born entrepreneur whose companies have included the online payment service PayPal. He now controls Twitter, renamed 'X'., who said: "Something scared Ilya enough to want to fire Sam. What was it?"³

But the result of the coup, they say, is that the company is now fully under Altman's control. There are no more limits on his wish to go further and faster.

Yes: Although the story remains murky, all the signs here point to one thing: AGI is here and about to be unleashed. No-one knows what that means for the future, but it is likely bad news for humanity.

No: It is probably no coincidence Musk recently started his own competitor to OpenAI. He is capitalising on this crisis to discredit a rival. There is simply no evidence Altman has actually developed AGI.

Or... Altman was probably fired for more mundane reasons than this. But the debacle is a reminder that AI development is still largely unregulated. There is a storm brewing on the horizon.