Ex-OpenAI staff say they were fired for raising safety concerns

Three former researchers pen open letter warning of ‘chilling’ effect on company culture.

CEO Sam Altman's OpenAI and other AI companies are at the centre of intense debate about how to ensure the rapidly evolving technology does not expose humanity to catastrophic harm [File: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters]

Three former OpenAI employees say they have been fired due to their efforts to ensure the safety of artificial intelligence.

Safety researchers Mikita Balesni, Tomek Korbak and Jasmine Wang levelled the accusations on Thursday after their dismissals last week. The trio warned of a “chilling” effect on other staff concerned about the frontier technology’s risks.

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OpenAI said they were let go due to misconduct involving the mishandling of company information.

“I believe we were fired for prioritizing safety over the near-term interests of OpenAI as a corporation,” Balesni said in a post on X.

Korbak voiced a similar sentiment, expressing his belief that he had been terminated for raising concerns that OpenAI was “losing the ability to monitor what AI agents think, one of our best tools for catching when they misbehave”.

In an open letter published in tandem with their social media posts, Balesni, Korbak and Wang expressed concerns that their dismissal would make their former colleagues “afraid to speak and operate in ways that, until last week, were an integral part of working at OpenAI”.

“We could raise safety concerns and disagree openly, and were encouraged to draw on the expertise of independent safety organizations,” they said in the letter. “This is part of what made OpenAI special, and why we are immensely proud to have been part of the team.”

The three added that “if the people closest to the risks can no longer work in high-trust, high-bandwidth ways with each other and with third parties”, then AI could not be developed safely.

“It is that culture we are writing to defend,” they stated.

The trio denied violating company policy, saying any engagement with external safety experts had been in line with the mandate of their roles.

“Given the significant safety concerns surrounding the development of AI, employees must not be left working in an environment where fear and unclear rules stymie AI safety work and weaken third-party accountability,” they said.

“Terminations such as ours, executed and communicated so abruptly, are chilling the open culture OpenAI has prized in the past.”

In a statement, OpenAI said it had uncovered “a significant breach of trust” by the former researchers that went beyond what was described in their letter and said it stood behind the decision to fire them.

“We want to be very clear that these decisions were not about raising safety concerns or speaking out,” the San Francisco-based company said.

“Safety and research debates happen every day at OpenAI, often spirited and highly critical. We actively encourage these discussions and consider them essential to making the right decisions. We cannot do the work in front of us without a high degree of trust. We will continue to be extremely forgiving of our team making good-faith mistakes.”

OpenAI added that it was saddened by the outcome.

“We appreciated Jasmine, Mikita, and Tomek’s contributions to AI safety at OpenAI and their willingness to speak up and challenge ideas,” the company said.

“We championed their voices, supported their work, and placed enormous trust in them. These decisions were not about them raising safety concerns. We have always encouraged that and always will.”

The ex-employees’ intervention comes as OpenAI and other AI companies are at the centre of intense debate about how to ensure the rapidly evolving technology does not expose humanity to catastrophic harm.

The risk of cutting-edge AI models escaping human control has been in the spotlight since July when it emerged that autonomous agents generated by OpenAI had hacked the software start-up Hugging Face.

OpenAI and its chief rival, Anthropic, have urged the international community to work together on a coordinated slowdown in AI development.

However, that suggestion has been rebuffed by the two leading AI powers, the United States and China.

Last month, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, SpaceXAI and Nvidia endorsed a voluntary accord calling for stronger internal safeguards and the engagement of external auditors to better manage safety risks.

The accord, announced by US President Donald Trump, drew a mixed response from AI safety advocates, many of whom criticised its nonbinding nature.

OpenAI has announced a number of steps to mitigate risks in the absence of formal regulation, including scrapping the planned release of its latest-generation model, GPT-6.1 Astra.

The ChatGPT creator said it decided not to go ahead with the release after its model failed to meet company standards for acting in accordance with human wishes.

三位前研究人员联名发表公开信，警告称此举会对公司文化产生“寒蝉效应”。

OpenAI 首席执行官 Sam Altman 和其他人工智能公司正处于激烈辩论的中心，争论的焦点是如何确保这项快速发展的技术不会给人类带来灾难性的伤害。[图片：Kim Kyung-Hoon/路透社]

三名前 OpenAI 员工表示，他们因努力确保人工智能的安全而被解雇。

安全研究员米基塔·巴莱斯尼、托梅克·科尔巴克和贾斯敏·王在上周被解雇后，于周四提出了这些指控。三人警告说，这会对其他关注这项前沿技术风险的员工产生“寒蝉效应”。

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OpenAI表示，他们被解雇是因为存在不当行为，包括滥用公司信息。

“我认为我们被解雇是因为我们把安全放在了 OpenAI 作为一家公司的近期利益之上，”Balesni 在 X 上发帖说。

Korbak 也表达了类似的看法，他认为自己被解雇是因为提出了对 OpenAI 的担忧，即 OpenAI 正在“失去监控 AI 代理想法的能力，这是我们发现它们行为不端的最佳工具之一”。

Balesni、Korbak 和 Wang 在一封与社交媒体帖子同时发布的公开信中表达了他们的担忧，即他们的解雇会让他们的前同事“害怕以各种方式发言和行事，而直到上周，这些方式还是 OpenAI 工作不可或缺的一部分”。

他们在信中写道：“我们可以公开提出安全方面的担忧并表达不同意见，而且公司鼓励我们借鉴独立安全组织的专业知识。这正是OpenAI的独特之处，也是我们为曾是该团队的一员而感到无比自豪的原因。”

三人补充说，“如果最接近风险的人员不能再以高度信任、高带宽的方式彼此合作以及与第三方合作”，那么人工智能就无法安全开发。

他们表示：“我们写作正是为了捍卫这种文化。”

三人否认违反公司政策，称与外部安全专家的任何接触都符合其职责范围。

他们表示：“鉴于人工智能发展过程中存在重大的安全隐患，绝不能让员工在恐惧和规则不明的环境中工作，以免阻碍人工智能安全工作并削弱第三方问责制。”

“像我们这样突然终止合作，并且如此草率地执行和宣布，正在扼杀 OpenAI 过去一直珍视的开放文化。”

OpenAI 在一份声明中表示，他们发现这两位前研究人员“严重违反了信任”，其行为超出了他们在信中描述的范围，并表示他们支持解雇他们的决定。

“我们想非常明确地表明，这些决定并非出于对安全的担忧或表达意见，”这家总部位于旧金山的公司表示。

“在 OpenAI，安全和研究方面的辩论每天都在进行，这些辩论往往激烈而尖锐。我们积极鼓励这些讨论，并认为它们对于做出正确的决策至关重要。如果没有高度的信任，我们就无法完成眼前的工作。我们将继续对团队成员出于善意而犯下的错误保持极大的宽容。”

OpenAI 还表示，他们对这一结果感到遗憾。

“我们感谢 Jasmine、Mikita 和 Tomek 对 OpenAI 人工智能安全做出的贡献，以及他们勇于发声、挑战固有观念的精神，”该公司表示。

“我们支持他们的声音，支持他们的工作，并对他们给予了极大的信任。这些决定并非源于他们提出的安全隐患。我们一直鼓励他们提出安全隐患，而且将来也会如此。”

这些前员工的介入正值 OpenAI 和其他人工智能公司成为激烈辩论的中心之际，辩论的焦点是如何确保快速发展的技术不会使人类遭受灾难性的伤害。

自 7 月 OpenAI 生成的自主代理入侵软件初创公司 Hugging Face 以来，尖端人工智能模型摆脱人类控制的风险一直备受关注。

OpenAI 及其主要竞争对手 Anthropic 已敦促国际社会共同努力，协调放缓人工智能的发展速度。

然而，这一建议遭到了人工智能领域的两大强国——美国和中国的拒绝。

上个月，OpenAI、Anthropic、谷歌、Meta、SpaceXAI 和英伟达签署了一项自愿协议，呼吁加强内部保障措施并聘请外部审计人员，以更好地管理安全风险。

美国总统唐纳德·特朗普宣布的这项协议，在人工智能安全倡导者中引起了不同的反响，其中许多人批评该协议不具约束力。

OpenAI 宣布了一系列措施来降低在缺乏正式监管的情况下可能出现的风险，其中包括取消原计划发布的最新一代模型 GPT-6.1 Astra。

ChatGPT 的开发者表示，由于其模型未能达到公司按照人类意愿行事的标准，因此决定不再发布该模型。