“OpenAI Fires Three Safety Researchers” by Zvi

Three OpenAI safety researchers, Tomek Korbak, Mikita Balesni and Jasmine Wang, were fired, ostensibly for ‘mishandling sensitive company information.’

Those employees have published an open letter. The employees have said they believe they were fired for safety advocacy, and that the reasons given were pretextual.

The letter calls upon OpenAI to take actions going forward on open discussion and safety auditing, which OpenAI says they strongly support.

OpenAI responded, saying there was an additional breach of trust that was not mentioned in the employee statements, without claiming that the employees were (or were not) informed of what it was. As you would expect given OpenAI's track record, most outside of OpenAI who discussed this believe the researchers and not OpenAI. Whereas those at OpenAI have not offered comment at all.

No matter what happened, and how this is handled from here, this sucks bigly. OpenAI has three less good safety researchers. Trust will be lower. Speech will be chilled.

Table of Contents

1. You’re Fired.
2. The Initial Statement from OpenAI.
3. Earned Skepticism.
4. Some Highly Reasonable Requests.
5. Chilling Effect.
6. OpenAI Firing These Employees For Safety Advocacy Would Be Deeply [...]

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Outline:

(01:13) You're Fired

(03:32) The Initial Statement from OpenAI

(04:58) Earned Skepticism

(06:37) Some Highly Reasonable Requests

(09:03) Chilling Effect

(11:02) OpenAI Firing These Employees For Safety Advocacy Would Be Deeply Stupid

(12:55) Why Were They Fired?

(13:43) Tomek Korbak

(17:48) Mikita Balesni

(19:12) Jasmine Wang

(22:52) Operational Security Alert

(23:35) OpenAI Responds

(26:13) A Significant Breach of Trust

(28:19) Good Faith

(28:48) No One Is Buying OpenAI's Non-Explanations

(41:15) The Dog Did Nothing in the Nighttime

(42:12) Another Theory (That I Do Not Agree With)

(43:38) The Reactions Are Not a Surprise Given the Actions

(44:29) This Is Terrible But Not Maximally Terrible

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First published:
October 12th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zCNm2PnqE5Zp6Z2FW/openai-fires-three-safety-researchers

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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