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
You’re Fired.
The Initial Statement from OpenAI.
Earned Skepticism.
Some Highly Reasonable Requests.
Chilling Effect.
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 (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zCNm2PnqE5Zp6Z2FW/openai-fires-three-safety-researchers?utm_source=TYPE_III_AUDIO&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_content=Source+URL+in+episode+description&utm_campaign=ai_narration)
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO (https://type3.audio/?utm_source=TYPE_III_AUDIO&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_content=Narrated+by+TYPE+III+AUDIO&utm_term=lesswrong&utm_campaign=ai_narration).
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“OpenAI Fires Three Safety Researchers” by Zvi
Published 12 Oct 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] That is not easy. OpenAI has done a lot of good work here over time exactly by having a bunch of people, including Rune, post a lot of things. We need a lot of things, but one of them is that we need more questionable posting, stat. One of the letters asks is highly relevant here. We also urge OpenAI to set out clearly how employees may work with external safety organizations so that no one has to guess where the shifting lines now are. To support this conversation, we request that this letter be shared widely internally. Those rules being clear and good will be a key early test. If OpenAI wants to undo the damage and chilling effect, including at other labs, they have to convince their employees, and ideally everyone, that safety advocacy, both internal and external, had nothing to do with why these three employees were fired. […]
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