Fired OpenAI safety researchers deny misconduct, warn of chilling effect
Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak and Mikita Balesni, the three safety researchers OpenAI fired last week, published an open letter on Thursday to the company's Safety and Security Committee, Safety Advisory Group and Mission Advisory Council denying they mishandled sensitive information. Balesni said he believes they were fired "for prioritizing safety over the near-term interests of OpenAI as a corporation"; Wang said the one reason she was given was accessing an executive's email, and Korbak said he was told verbally that the issue was how he communicated with METR. They also denied being the source of The Information's report on less-monitorable architectures, and warned the abrupt dismissals are chilling internal openness and third-party accountability.
Why it matters: It sharpens the governance question of where confidentiality ends and independent safety evaluation begins at frontier labs.
References AIbase AI新闻 · Latent Space · TechCrunch AI · Techmeme · The Information
The three safety researchers whom OpenAI fired last week challenged OpenAI’s decision, saying on Thursday they were punished for raising safety concerns.
“I believe we were fired for prioritizing safety over the near-term interests of OpenAI as a corporation,” Mikita Balesni, one of the ...
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