{"id":475658,"date":"2026-02-12T19:02:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T19:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/475658\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T19:02:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T19:02:20","slug":"ai-researchers-are-sounding-the-alarm-on-their-way-out-the-door","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/475658\/","title":{"rendered":"AI researchers are sounding the alarm on their way out the door"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n A version of this story appeared in CNN Business\u2019 Nightcap newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

New York
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe world is in peril,\u201d warned the former head of Anthropic\u2019s Safeguards Research team as he headed for the exit. A researcher for OpenAI, similarly on the way out, said that the technology has \u201ca potential for manipulating users in ways we don\u2019t have the tools to understand, let alone prevent.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n They\u2019re part of a wave of artificial intelligence researchers and executives who aren\u2019t just leaving their employers \u2014 they\u2019re loudly ringing the alarm bell on the way out, calling attention to what they see as bright red flags.\n <\/p>\n

\n While Silicon Valley is known for high turnover, the latest churn comes as market leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic race toward IPOs that could turbocharge their growth while also inviting intense scrutiny of their operations.\n <\/p>\n

\n In just the past few days, a number of high-profile AI staffers have decided to call it quits, with some explicitly warning that the companies they worked for are moving too fast and downplaying the technology\u2019s shortcomings.\n <\/p>\n

\n Zo\u00eb Hitzig, a researcher with OpenAI for the past two years, broadcast her resignation Wednesday in a New York Times essay<\/a>, citing \u201cdeep reservations\u201d about OpenAI\u2019s emerging advertising strategy. Hitzig, who warned about ChatGPT\u2019s potential for manipulating users, said that the chatbot\u2019s archive of user data, built on \u201cmedical fears, their relationship problems, their beliefs about God and the afterlife,\u201d presents an ethical dilemma precisely because people believed they were chatting with a program that had no ulterior motives.\n <\/p>\n

\n Hitzig\u2019s critique comes as the tech news site Platformer reports<\/a> that OpenAI disbanded its \u201cmission alignment\u201d team, created in 2024 to promote the company\u2019s goal of ensuring that all of humanity benefits from the pursuit of \u201cartificial general intelligence\u201d \u2014 a hypothetical AI capable of human-level thought.\n <\/p>\n

\n OpenAI didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment.\n <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n Also this week, Mrinank Sharma, the head of Anthropic\u2019s Safeguards Research team, posted a cryptic letter<\/a> Tuesday announcing his decision to leave the company and warning that \u201cthe world is in peril.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Sharma\u2019s letter made only vague references to Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot. He didn\u2019t say why he was leaving but noted it was \u201cclear to me that the time to move on has come\u201d and that \u201c throughout my time here, I\u2019ve repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Anthropic told CNN in a statement that it was grateful for Sharma\u2019s work advancing AI safety research. The company noted that he was not the head of safety nor was he in charge of broader safeguards at the company.\n <\/p>\n

\n Meanwhile, at xAI, two co-founders quit in the span of 24 hours this week, announcing their departures on X<\/a>. That leaves just half of xAI\u2019s founders remaining at the firm, which is merging with Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX to create the world\u2019s most valuable private company<\/a>. At least five other xAI staff<\/a> have announced their departures on social media over the past week.\n <\/p>\n

\n It wasn\u2019t immediately clear why the latest xAI cofounders left, and xAI didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment. In social media post Wednesday, Musk said xAI was \u201creorganized\u201d to speed up growth, which \u201cunfortunately required parting ways with some people.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n While it\u2019s not unusual for high-level talent to bounce around in an emerging industry like AI, the scale of the departures over such a short period at xAI stands out.\n <\/p>\n

\n The startup has faced a global backlash over its Grok<\/a> chatbot, which was allowed to generate nonconsensual pornographic images of women and children for weeks before the team stepped in to stop it. Grok has also been prone to generating antisemitic<\/a> comments in responses to user prompts.\n <\/p>\n

\n Other recent departures underscore the tension between some researchers worried about safety and top executives eager to generate revenue.\n <\/p>\n

\n On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported<\/a> that OpenAI fired one of its top safety executives after she voiced opposition to the rollout of an \u201cadult mode\u201d that allows pornographic content on ChatGPT. OpenAI fired the safety executive, Ryan Beiermeister, on the grounds that she discriminated against a male employee \u2014 an accusation Beiermeister told the Journal was \u201cabsolutely false.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n OpenAI told the Journal that her firing was unrelated to \u201cany issue she raised while working at the company.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n High-level defections have been part of the AI story since ChatGPT came on the market in late 2022. Not long after, Geoffrey Hinton, known as the \u201cGodfather of AI,\u201d left his role at Google and began evangelizing about what he sees as existential risks AI poses<\/a>, including massive economic upheaval in a world where many will \u201cnot be able to know what is true anymore.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Doomsday predictions abound \u2013 including among AI executives who have a financial incentive to hype up the power of their own products. One of those predictions went viral this week, with HyperWrite CEO Matt Shumer posting a nearly 5,000-word screed<\/a> about how the latest AI models have already made some tech jobs obsolete.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe\u2019re telling you what already occurred in our own jobs,\u201d he wrote, \u201cand warning you that you\u2019re next.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A version of this story appeared in CNN Business\u2019 Nightcap newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-475658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}