Mystery lingers over why OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was thrown out of the company and then reinstated less than a week later — a dramatic reversal by the company’s non-profit board that spurned an astronomical amount of speculation. Nonetheless, theories have floated to the top of the rumor mill. One of the most intriguing: that OpenAI might have been quietly working on a highly advanced AI that could have thrown the board into panic mode and sparked the dustup. After all, OpenAI has long made it its primary mission to realize an artificial general intelligence (AGI) — loosely defined as an algorithm that can complete complex tasks as well as or even better than humans — to “benefit all of humanity,” in the words of Altman himself. Whether the company’s actually getting closer to achieving this goal remains highly debatable. The company has also historically been highly secretive when it comes to its research, making it even more difficult to read the two leaves over recent weeks. But an interesting new twist to the story suggests OpenAI may have been on the verge of a major leap forward, and that it may indeed have been related to the shakeup. Last week, Reuters and The Information reported that some OpenAI leaders may have gotten spooked by a powerful new AI the company was working on called Q*, pronounced “Q star.” This new system was apparently seen by some as a significant step towards the company’s goal of establishing AGI, and is…OpenAI's Chaos Linked to Super Powerful New AI It Secretly Built