The case for OpenAI becoming a B Corp

The cofounder of B Lab, the global nonprofit that came up with the B Corp certification for accountable, sustainable, and transparent companies, believes that OpenAI should sign up to its system and dedicate itself to becoming more responsible.

Andrew Kassoy tells Fast Company that as the leader of the AI revolution, the makers of ChatGPT had a responsibility to lead by example—citing missteps by prior generations of tech firms as evidence that their leadership would be a boon for the broader sector.

“This is a moment, a little like social media nearly a generation ago,” he says. “There was a failure, I think, to recognize and reckon with the impact that it could have if it wasn’t properly either regulated or structured or governed, or addressed some of those issues. And I think we’re in a similar place with AI.”

Kassoy isn’t calling for a cessation or slowing in the development of AI systems. Rather, he believes the impact AI will have on the planet behooves big companies in the space to sign up to some sort of certification scheme to ensure they act responsibly. “I think we recognize that AI is going to have an incredible impact on every business out there, as well as all stakeholders of business,” he says.

B Lab, which oversees the certification of B Corps, has therefore spent time thinking about how it can contribute and help develop structure and governance theses for AI companies to follow. “I actually believe there’s lots of positive things that could happen if we get it right,” he says.

One of those proposals B Lab suggests echoes what OpenAI has said it is keen to do: create a new legal structure with built-in accountability to stakeholder interests, while recognizing the pressure from investors to turn a profit. OpenAI has been valued in recent months at more than $150 billion after its latest funding round.

But Kassoy believes OpenAI needs to do more to allay concerns by those outside and within the company—not least given the ouster a year ago of then-CEO Sam Altman, who was returned to the company and his role atop it after a staff rebellion against the board designed to keep track of the firm. “They’ve been a nonprofit for the last nine years. And clearly there are issues of trust and pressure from investors that have created lots of concern inside the industry, including amongst their own employees,” he says.

He adds: “I think we should see all of that as a reason to be worried, and therefore to see this is a moment. There’s a moment of transition happening here.” Kassoy doesn’t see it as an issue whether OpenAI is structured as a for-profit or not-for-profit company. “The question is whether they’re structured right in either of those cases to generate more trust,” he says.

Anthropic, an OpenAI competitor set up by former employees of the ChatGPT maker, registered as a B Corp, developing a structure designed to develop AI for the benefit of humanity. Kassoy highlighted Anthropic as an example Altman’s company could follow. “I think there’s a set of structure and governance things they could do that would that would significantly change the way decisions are made, and that would take the power or the Reliance out of the hands of a single individual or a few individuals,” he says. Such actions would also limit the power of some of the investors in the company to set aside society-benefitting commitments that OpenAI previously made in favor of the pursuit of profit.

“I think it’s absolutely critical OpenAI, along with the other big AI platforms, could participate in a process to create third-party standards,” Kassoy adds. “Those best practices do not include the industry creating the standards themselves, but instead create a process for a multi-stakeholder, transparent process to create standards that companies agree to abide by.”

Kassoy tells Fast Company he has not tried contacting OpenAI about the opportunities of being a B Corp, but wouldn’t say why he had not proactively contacted the firm. (OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request to comment asking whether they would be willing to work with B Lab.) “I would love to be able to have that kind of conversation with them,” he says. He adds: “it doesn’t have to be B Lab. There are plenty of other people out there who have expertise in governance and structuring and transparency. I think the important thing is that they do it.”