The_Info_Web/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Tasha McCauley.md

category	tags	summary	relations	created	updated
Technologists	Person OpenAI EffectiveAltruism RAND Robotics	Robotics and geospatial entrepreneur, RAND adjunct and UK board member of Effective Ventures, who as an OpenAI director voted in November 2023 to remove Sam Altman and then left the board.	type with role end fn member_of OpenAI independent director of the nonprofit board 2023-11 2 type with role start fn employed_by Rand Corporation adjunct senior management scientist 2023 1 type with role fn employed_by Singularity University director of an innovation lab 1 type with fn founded Fellow Robots 1 type with fn founded GeoSim Systems 1 type with role end fn head_of GeoSim Systems chief executive officer 2022 1 type with role fn member_of Effective Ventures U.K. board of the Effective Ventures Foundation 1 type with role fn member_of Center for the Governance of AI advisory board 1 type with fn spouse_of Joseph Gordon-Levitt 1	2026-09-23	2026-09-23

Tasha McCauley became an adjunct senior management scientist at the Rand Corporation in 2023. She had earlier directed an innovation lab at Singularity University, co-founded the robotics startup Fellow Robots with a colleague from there, and then co-founded GeoSim Systems, a geospatial technology company, where she was chief executive until 2022.¹

With her husband, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, she signed the Asilomar AI Principles, 23 principles of AI governance published in 2017, which Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever and Elon Musk also signed. She sat on the advisory board of the Center for the Governance of AI with Helen Toner, and on the U.K. board of the Effective Ventures, the parent organization of the Centre for Effective Altruism.¹

OpenAI

McCauley was one of the independent directors of the nonprofit board of OpenAI which, on November 17, 2023, announced that Altman would leave as chief executive after "a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities." The company listed its board that day as "OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, independent directors Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo, technology entrepreneur Tasha McCauley, and Center for Security and Emerging Technology's Helen Toner."² OpenAI directors, according to the company's own description, held no equity and received no other compensation.¹

On November 29, 2023, Altman returned as chief executive with a new initial board of Bret Taylor, Larry Summers and D'Angelo. He wrote that he was "grateful to Adam, Tasha, and Helen for working with us to come to this solution that best serves the mission," and "sincerely thankful to Helen and Tasha for investing a huge amount of effort in this process." McCauley, Toner and Sutskever left the board; D'Angelo stayed.³

The Cruz Letter

On September 13, 2024, Senator Ted Cruz, ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, wrote to RAND's president Jason Matheny about RAND's part in drafting the Executive Order 14110 of 2023. "RAND has both personal and financial connections to incumbent AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI," he wrote. "For instance, you are one of five members on Anthropic's 'Long-Term Benefit Trust,' which oversees the AI company." McCauley, he continued, was "an adjunct senior management scientist at RAND and effective altruism advocate" who had "just left OpenAI's board last November." He added: "RAND is also connected with Open Philanthropy, the charitable arm of these AI companies. Last year, Open Philanthropy gave RAND $16 million to advance its 'work on potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence.'"⁴

Footnotes

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1. Konrad, Alex, and Sarah Emerson. "These Are The People That Fired OpenAI CEO Sam Altman." Forbes, November 17, 2023, archived November 18, 2023. http://web.archive.org/web/20231118075941/https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2023/11/17/these-are-the-people-that-fired-openai-ceo-sam-altman/ ↩︎

2. OpenAI. "OpenAI announces leadership transition." November 17, 2023, archived November 17, 2023. http://web.archive.org/web/20231117210540/https://openai.com/blog/openai-announces-leadership-transition ↩︎

3. OpenAI. "Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board." November 29, 2023, archived November 30, 2023. http://web.archive.org/web/20231130020514/https://openai.com/blog/sam-altman-returns-as-ceo-openai-has-a-new-initial-board ↩︎

4. Cruz, Ted. Letter to Jason Matheny, President and CEO, RAND Corporation, September 13, 2024, U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/AF082319-C877-47CC-95F6-8240EE6A105D ↩︎