OpenAI Charter

• Authority: Private-sector companies
• Collections: Corporate policies and commitments
• Most recent activity: Enacted
• Most recent activity date: 2018-04-09

Risk subdomain coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the risk subdomain are explicitly described.

• Power centralization and unfair distribution
• Competitive dynamics
• AI pursuing its own goals
• Lack of capability or robustness

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the risk subdomain are described.

• AI system security vulnerabilities
• Disinformation, surveillance, and influence at scale
• Cyberattacks, weapon development or use
• Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation
• Governance failure
• AI possessing dangerous capabilities
• Lack of transparency or interpretability

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document has good coverage of approximately 6-8 subdomains, with strong focus on AI safety failures (7.1, 7.2, 7.3), competitive dynamics (6.4), power centralization (6.1), governance failure (6.5), and malicious actors (4.1, 4.2). Coverage is concentrated in AI system safety, socioeconomic impacts, and misuse prevention domains.

Sector coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the sector are explicitly described.

• Information
• Scientific Research & Development Services

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

This is an internal corporate charter for OpenAI, an AI development company. The primary sectors governed are Information (data processing, AI services) and Scientific Research and Development Services (AI research). The document does not regulate specific application sectors but rather governs OpenAI's own operations across AI development and deployment.

Legislative Status

Other

Legislative Status Summary

This is an internal corporate charter document that establishes OpenAI's organizational principles and commitments. It contains voluntary commitments and aspirational language without legal enforcement mechanisms or binding obligations.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Developer
• Entities: OpenAI
• Summary: The document is OpenAI's own charter describing their principles and mission. OpenAI is explicitly the author and proposer of this governance framework.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Developer
• Entities: OpenAI; other AGI development projects
• Summary: The charter primarily applies to OpenAI's own operations and employees, but also references cooperation with other research institutions and potential collaboration with other AGI projects.

Enforcer

• Summary: No external enforcement body or mechanism is specified in the charter. This is a voluntary internal commitment document without formal enforcement provisions.

Monitor

• Summary: No specific monitoring body or oversight mechanism is identified in the charter. The document mentions cooperation with policy institutions but does not designate a formal monitoring entity.

AI Lifecycle Stages

Lifecycle stages covered by the documents, as defined in the OECD Framework for the Classification of AI Systems

• Plan and Design
• Build and Use Model
• Verify and Validate
• Deploy
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document addresses multiple AI lifecycle stages with primary focus on Build and Use Model, Deploy, and Operate and Monitor stages. It emphasizes safety research throughout development, deployment decisions, and ongoing cooperation with the broader AI community.

Technical Scope

Terms relating to technical scope that are mentioned or implicitly referenced in the document

• AI Models
• Frontier AI
• AI Systems
• General Purpose AI
• Open Weight / Open Source

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly focuses on AGI (artificial general intelligence) defined as 'highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work'. It also mentions AI more broadly in the context of pre-AGI impacts. No specific mentions of foundation models, generative AI, compute thresholds, or open-weight models.