OpenAI defends firing AI safety researchers over alleged

OpenAI has responded to a letter that three of its fired researchers posted on social media Thursday, defending its decision to terminate their employment for violating company protocol around handling sensitive information.

The researchers — Mikita Balesni, Jasmine Wang, and Tomek Korbak — were fired for "prioritizing safety over the near-term interest of OpenAI as a corporation," Balesni claimed in a social media post featuring their letter.

Almost two-thirds of Americans say they believe AI is developing too quickly, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

"We are concerned that internal and external communications around our firing have made our former colleagues afraid to speak and operate in ways that, until last week, were an integral part of working at OpenAI," they wrote in the letter. "We would raise safety concerns and disagree openly, and were encouraged to draw on the expertise of independent safety organizations."

They added that AI is "not a normal technology, and OpenAI is not a normal company." That, they argued, makes it necessary to collaborate freely with outside experts "without fear" of retaliation.

OpenAI defended its decision to dismiss the employees after an internal investigation uncovered what it called "a significant breach of trust beyond what's outlined in the letter they published."

OpenAI insisted that it tolerates "good-faith mistakes" and does not terminate workers for "raising concerns." The company said it is also engaging third-party safety assessors to independently evaluate its work and any risks it poses.

"We are committed to embedding external assessors and continue to make close collaboration with independent safety organizations a core part of our safety work. Many of our researchers already work with 3p safety organizations productively," OpenAI said.

"We agree with the letter that preserving the monitorability of frontier models requires an industry-wide commitment, including from OpenAI," it said.

Some safety researchers at AI labs have also publicly resigned because they say they don't want to play a part in AI's potential safety risks.

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