Three fired OpenAI safety researchers dispute misconduct claims and warn of a "chilling effect"
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Published in SI: . Updated: .
The sides disagree: the company speaks of violations, the researchers of pressure on people who raise safety concerns.
According to TechCrunch, Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak and Mikita Balesni, who were fired the week of October 1, published an open letter on October 8. OpenAI, per the same source, alleges they broke rules by accessing and handling sensitive information; the researchers deny a "pattern of misconduct". Wang explained that she opened an executive's email as part of delegated recruiting tasks and reported the accidental access within minutes. The letter's authors write that such firings chill open culture and that colleagues fear speaking up about safety. An internal OpenAI memo, according to TechCrunch, says the company does not fire employees for raising concerns; it did not specify which rules were broken.
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