OpenAI responded to the firing of three safety researchers, saying they violated policies on handling sensitive information

OpenAI responded to a letter to leadership publicly released by three fired researchers on social media, saying an internal investigation found they violated clear policies on handling sensitive information, constituting a serious breach of trust beyond the scope described in the letter. The fired researchers, Mikita Balesni, Jasmine Wang, and Tomek Korbak, said in the letter that they were fired for prioritizing safety over the company's short-term interests, and worried the incident would discourage other colleagues with safety concerns from speaking up. OpenAI said the firings were unrelated to raising safety concerns or public statements, that the company encourages internal safety and research debate, and that it is bringing in third-party safety evaluators to independently assess its work and risks. The two sides agree on one point: maintaining the monitorability of frontier models requires an industry-wide commitment, including from OpenAI.