量子位, The Decoder · 17 sources量子位 · 17 sources · 25 reports · OpenAI safety team departures and firing controversy
In early October 2026, OpenAI's safety transparency lead David Robinson left the company and wrote in The Atlantic criticizing that the company's safety culture had collapsed, arguing that frontier labs should have multiple layers of redundancy like nuclear power plants and aviation systems. Previously, safety and alignment researchers Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak, and Mikita Balesni were fired for allegedly mishandling sensitive information outside established processes. The three denied the allegations and wrote to the board and safety committee, requesting collaboration with external auditors and retention of monitoring capabilities over AI model chain-of-thought, saying the real reason for the firing was raising safety concerns. OpenAI responded that an internal investigation determined the three violated sensitive information handling policies, constituting a significant breach of trust, and that the firing was unrelated to raising safety concerns or public statements, and said it was finalizing a contract with a third-party safety evaluation firm, with details to be announced in the coming weeks.
