\n Three OpenAI safety researchers say they were fired from the company and are openly questioning the reasons for their dismissals.\n <\/p>\n
\n The three researchers, Mikita Balesni, Tomak Korbak and Jasmine Wang, all worked on AI safety or alignment within the company, making sure the AI systems did what their human operators intended for them to do in a safe manner.\n <\/p>\n
\n But the three say they were unceremoniously let go last week, weeks after they say they played key parts in investigating an incident in which OpenAI agents autonomously hacked<\/a> into AI company Hugging Face while undergoing testing.\n <\/p>\n \n Korback said<\/a> on X that he was told he was being fired because of how he communicated with AI safety organization METR, which OpenAI partnered<\/a> with to investigate the Hugging Face incident. Korback said he was OpenAI\u2019s \u201cmain technical point of contact\u201d with METR.\n <\/p>\n \n Korback said he believes he was fired because \u201cfor months, I\u2019d been raising safety concerns that \u202fwe\u2019re losing the ability to monitor what AI agents think, one of our best tools for catching when they misbehave.\u201d He added he\u2019s worried his firing will be used as a pretext for OpenAI to stop working as closely with METR, which is well respected in the AI safety world.\n <\/p>\n \n Balesni echoed<\/a> Korbak\u2019s theories for why they were fired, writing on X that he was told he was \u201cspeaking too much to third party safety organizations.\u201d He said he understood OpenAI was implying he leaked OpenAI intellectual property, which he denies.\n <\/p>\n \n The three firings come on the heels of a wave AI industry insiders expressing dire safety concerns. And while several former AI staffers have publicly resigned<\/a> over safety concerns, the three OpenAI researchers instead allege they were pushed out for expressing similar concerns.\n <\/p>\n \n Wang said<\/a> she was told she was fired because she \u201caccessed an executive\u2019s email,\u201d which she said she was given for recruiting purposes. Wang said she had repeatedly asked to for her access to be revoked, but when she accidentally accessed a \u201csensitive email,\u201d she told the executive \u201cwithin minutes\u201d and told OpenAI\u2019s IT team again.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe reasons that we were provided for our terminations are simply not adding up,\u201d Wang wrote on X.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe were not the first to be pushed out of OpenAI under suspicious circumstances,\u201d she added. \u201cUnless the employees take a stand now against this kind of maneuver, I am concerned we will not be the last.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The three researchers wrote a letter to OpenAI leadership expressing their concerns and the reasons for their firings. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the firings<\/a> and the letter<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe do not believe the path to superintelligence can be navigated safely if the people closest to the risks can no longer work in high-trust, high-bandwidth ways with each other and with third parties,\u201d the researchers wrote. \u201cIt is that culture we\u2019re trying to defend.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n OpenAI told CNN that the researchers were fired not for raising safety concerns, but rather for specific conduct that violated the company\u2019s policies on handling sensitive information. It also said that there were a number of violations that went beyond mishandling information with an outside evaluation group, and that they were fired based on conduct that fell outside of legally protected disclosures.\n <\/p>\n \n In a statement, OpenAI said it parted ways with the three \u201cfor violating our policies on accessing and handling sensitive company information.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cOur investigation confirmed that these individuals mishandled sensitive information outside established company procedures, violating our policies and breaking the trust essential to our work,\u201d the OpenAI spokesperson added.\n <\/p>\n \n In a memo to staff provided by OpenAI, an unnamed OpenAI research leader said they \u201cstrongly agree\u201d with the three researchers about the importance of working with outside safety groups.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI want to be very clear that these decisions were not about raising safety concerns or speaking out. We have always encouraged that and always will. We do not terminate employees for raising concerns,\u201d the research leader wrote, according to the memo.\n <\/p>\n \n But the three fired researchers say they are already hearing from colleagues about a culture of fear developing within OpenAI.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cMy former colleagues are telling me they are confused about what to believe. They also are afraid to speak, and worry their personal phones will be searched for messages to us and third parties,\u201d Balesni said. \u201cI worry the pervading fear to speak up and engage with third parties will mean OpenAI will cut corners on safety behind closed doors.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three OpenAI safety researchers say they were fired from the company and are openly questioning the reasons for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":926116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,61],"class_list":["post-926115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=926115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/926116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}