Fired OpenAI safety researchers dispute misconduct claims in open letter
Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak and Mikita Balesni — the three safety and alignment 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 that they mishandled sensitive information. Balesni said he believes they were fired for "prioritizing safety over the near-term interests of OpenAI as a corporation," and the three warned the dismissals are creating a chilling effect and could reduce cooperation with outside evaluators such as METR. OpenAI defended the firings as a response to a "significant breach of trust," saying the decisions "were not about raising safety concerns or speaking out."
The dispute puts internal safety culture, room for dissent and external audit relationships at frontier labs in the spotlight.