The headline implies they selectively removed the word "safely," but that doesn't seem to be the case.
From the thread you linked, there's a diff of mission statements over the years[0], which reveals that "safely" (which was only added 2 years prior) was removed only because they completely rewrote the statement into a single, terse sentence.
There could be stronger evidence to prove if OpenAI is deemphasizing safety, but this isn't one.
They also removed the words build, develop, deploy, and technology, indicating that they're no longer a tech company and don't make products anymore. Wonder what they're all gonna do now?
From the thread you linked, there's a diff of mission statements over the years[0], which reveals that "safely" (which was only added 2 years prior) was removed only because they completely rewrote the statement into a single, terse sentence.
There could be stronger evidence to prove if OpenAI is deemphasizing safety, but this isn't one.
[0]: https://gist.github.com/simonw/e36f0e5ef4a86881d145083f759bc...