In the days before Altman was sent off into exile, several staff researchers penned a letter to the board about a significant breakthrough - called Q* and pronounced Q-Star - that allowed the AI model to "surpass humans in most economically valuable tasks." 

Reuters sources said the AI milestone was one of the significant factors that led to the board's abrupt firing of Altman last Friday. Another concern was commercializing the advanced AI model without understanding the socio-economic consequences. 

The source said the model could solve mathematical problems but only "on the level of grade-school students, acing such tests made researchers very optimistic about Q*'s future success." 

Also, before Altman was sacked, he might have referenced Q* at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in San Francisco: 

"Four times now in the history of OpenAI—the most recent time was just in the last couple of weeks—I've gotten to be in the room, when we sort of push the veil of ignorance back and the frontier of discovery forward," said Altman.