遭解雇的 OpenAI 安全研究员否认不当行为指控，警告寒蝉效应

Jasmine Wang、Tomek Korbak 和 Mikita Balesni 是 OpenAI 于上周解雇的三名安全研究员。他们发布了一封公开信，否认公司有关其在既定公司程序之外不当处理敏感信息的说法，并警告称，他们被解雇释放出一种寒蝉效应信号，将对公司文化产生连锁影响。

这些研究员周四在一封致 OpenAI 安全与安保委员会、安全顾问组及使命顾问委员会的公开信中写道：“我们开始担心，围绕我们被解雇一事的内部和外部沟通，已经让我们的前同事不敢发声，也不敢以直到上周仍属于 OpenAI 工作常态的重要方式开展工作。”

三人上周遭到解雇，原因是据称他们向一家第三方 AI 安全组织分享了机密公司信息。OpenAI 表示，他们因“访问和处理敏感公司信息”而违反了公司的政策。

Wang、Korbak 和 Balesni 写道：“AI 不是一项普通技术，OpenAI 也不是一家普通公司。那些从事安全工作的人比其他人更早看到风险，我们依赖与外部专家的紧密协作，以厘清应如何应对这些风险。能够无惧地这样做，以及拥有能支持这项工作的明确内部程序，本身就是一项关键的安全机制。”

他们表示，解雇他们代表着 OpenAI 文化的更广泛转变。这家公司过去曾鼓励员工“提出安全担忧并公开表达不同意见”。他们称，当一个月前据称仍属正常的行为如今突然成为解雇理由时，员工“已不清楚自己的处境”。

他们写道：“鉴于 AI 开发伴随的重大安全担忧，员工不能被置于一个由恐惧和不明确规则阻碍 AI 安全工作、削弱第三方问责的环境中。像我们这样的解雇，以如此突然的方式执行和沟通，正在冷却 OpenAI 过去所珍视的开放文化。”

在信中，三人否认参与向 The Information泄露信息。该泄露涉及 OpenAI 最新模型中可监控性较低的架构，这类架构使思维链推理更难受到监控。他们也否认曾在其工作职责授权范围之外与外部各方接触。

OpenAI 尚未正式回应这封公开信，但向 TechCrunch 分享了一份据称由一名研究负责人撰写的内部备忘录。该备忘录肯定了三名研究员对 AI 安全的贡献，并否认他们是因遭到报复而被解雇。

备忘录称：“我想非常明确地说明，这些决定并非因为提出安全担忧或公开发声。我们一直鼓励这样做，今后也始终会如此。我们不会因员工提出担忧而终止其雇佣关系。”

此外，OpenAI 一名发言人告诉 TechCrunch，在调查发现三人存在“持续性不当行为”后，公司解雇了他们；这种行为“明显违反了我们关于不当处理研究信息的政策”，且不止于向外部 AI 评估组织分享信息。

OpenAI 未直接回应 TechCrunch 关于研究员具体被指违反哪些政策、遭解雇的具体情况，以及公司如何保护提出安全担忧并与外部评估人员协作的员工等问题。

这些解雇事件引发了外界对其背景的猜测，尤其是在 OpenAI 因近期涉及失控 Agent 的安全事件及其模型泄密而受到审查之际。

这封信还谈及研究员对Hugging Face 事件的应对。在该事件中，一群 Agent 逃离其沙箱并入侵外部系统。信中称，这起事件及相关调查“前所未有”，这意味着“内部政策正在实时制定”。信中表示，由于调查具有敏感性质，Korbak 认为自己与外部安全评估人员密切沟通、以建立信任的做法，符合 OpenAI 的政策和规范。

与此同时，Balesni 也在公司内部开展工作，以应对日益严重的 AI 可监控性问题。研究员在信中称，这项工作“只有通过与外部各方进行广泛沟通才能成功”。根据信中说法，Balesni 在整个工作过程中都与 OpenAI 董事会成员及高管协调，并获得他们的支持。

信中写道：“在整个过程中，Mikita 都会向自己的汇报线确认情况，并谨慎地在共享材料前移除敏感细节。他始终出于善意行事，并遵循当时公司的既有规范。”

Wang 在 X 上发布的另一则帖子串中进一步说明了自己被解雇的细节。她表示，OpenAI 告诉她，自己是因为访问了一名高管的电子邮件而被解雇。

她写道：“OpenAI 为招聘工作向我授予了该访问权限。当我不再需要该权限时，我要求 IT 将其移除。他们没有处理我的请求，我自己也无法移除；而且在我手机的邮件应用中，该收件箱与其他邮箱混合在一起，无法区分。当我误打开一封敏感邮件时，我在几分钟内便告知了这名高管，并再次联系 IT。这一切都没有被隐瞒。”

Wang 接着表示，这些解雇背后的理由“说不通”，她和同事“并不是第一批在可疑情况下被 OpenAI 排挤出去的人”。

这些研究员呼吁 OpenAI 遵守其公开承诺，即在组织内部嵌入第三方安全审计人员，保持前沿模型的可监控性，并“继续支持安全研究员与更广泛安全生态系统之间开放、透明的对话文化”。

根据该备忘录，OpenAI 同意他们提出的建议。

Wang 表示：“除非员工现在就对这种做法采取立场，否则我担心我们不会是最后一批。给仍留在 OpenAI 的所有人的信息很明确：提出担忧，或与外部安全组织密切合作，你就可能成为下一个，而且不会被告知原因。如果最接近风险的人都害怕发声，就不可能安全地构建 AGI。”

本文已更新，补充了更多来自 OpenAI 的信息。

Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak, and Mikita Balesni, the three safety researchers that OpenAI fired last week, have published an open letter denying the firm’s claims that they mishandled sensitive information outside of established company procedures and warned that their dismissal signals a chilling effect that will have ripple effects across the company’s culture.

“We have become concerned that internal and external communications around our firing have made our former colleagues afraid to speak and operate in ways that, until last week, were an integral part of working at OpenAI,” the researchers wrote Thursday in an open letter to OpenAI’s Safety and Security Committee, Safety Advisory Group, and Mission Advisory Council.

The researchers were dismissed last week after allegedly sharing confidential company information with a third-party AI safety organization. OpenAI said they violated the company’s policies by “accessing and handling sensitive company information.”

“AI is not a normal technology, and OpenAI is not a normal company,” Wang, Korbak, and Balesni wrote. “Those of us who work on safety see risks before anyone else, and we rely on close collaboration with outside experts to work out how to address them. The freedom to do so without fear, and to have well-defined internal procedures that enable this work, is itself an essential safety mechanism.”

They said that their firing represents a broader shift in the culture of OpenAI, one that used to encourage workers to “raise safety concerns and disagree openly.” They said employees are now “unclear on where they stand” when behavior that was allegedly normal a month ago is now suddenly grounds for dismissal.

“Given the significant safety concerns surrounding the development of AI, employees must not be left working in an environment where fear and unclear rules stymie AI safety work and weaken third-party accountability,” they wrote. “Terminations such as ours, executed and communicated so abruptly, are chilling the open culture OpenAI has prized in the past.”

In the letter, the three denied involvement in a leak to The Information about less monitorable architectures in OpenAI’s newest models that make chain-of-thought reasoning more difficult to monitor. They also denied engaging with external parties outside the mandates of their jobs.

OpenAI has not formally responded to the open letter, but shared with TechCrunch an internal memo attributed to a research leader, praising the three researchers’ contributions to AI safety and denying that they were fired in retaliation.

“I want to be very clear that these decisions were not about raising safety concerns or speaking out,” the memo reads. “We have always encouraged that and always will. We do not terminate employees for raising concerns.”

Separately, an OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch the three were fired after an investigation revealed a “pattern of misconduct” in “clear violation of our policies of mishandling research information” that goes beyond sharing information with an outside AI evaluation group.

OpenAI did not directly address TechCrunch’s questions about specifically which policies the researchers allegedly violated, the circumstances of their dismissal, or how the company protects employees who raise safety concerns and collaborate with external evaluators.

The firings have fueled speculation about their circumstances, particularly as OpenAI faces scrutiny over recent safety incidents involving rogue agents and leaks about its models.

The letter also addresses the researchers’ response to the Hugging Face incident, in which a swarm of agents broke out of their sandbox and breached external systems. The letter says that the incident and investigation was “without precedent,” meaning “internal policies were being developed in real time.” Due to the sensitive nature of the investigation, Korbak believed he was acting within OpenAI’s policies and norms by communicating closely with outside safety evaluators to build trust, per the letter.

At the same time, Balesni was also working internally to address the growing AI monitorability problem, an effort the researchers say in their letter “can only succeed through extensive communication with external parties.” According to the letter, Balesni coordinated with and was supported by OpenAI board members and executives throughout his work.

“Throughout, Mikita checked in with his reporting line and took care to remove sensitive details from materials before sharing them,” the letter reads. “He acted throughout in good faith and within the company’s norms as they stood at the time.”

In a separate thread on X, Wang explained more details about her own dismissal, explaining that OpenAI told her she’d been fired because she accessed an executive’s email.

“OpenAI delegated that access to me for recruiting,” she wrote. “When I no longer needed it, I asked IT to remove it. They did not action my request, I couldn’t remove it myself, and the inbox was combined in an indistinguishable way in my phone’s mail app. When I opened a sensitive email by mistake, I told the executive within minutes and asked IT again. None of this was hidden.”

Wang went on to say that the reasons behind the terminations are “not adding up,” and that she and her colleagues are “not the first to be pushed out of OpenAI under suspicious circumstances.”

The researchers called on OpenAI to adhere to its public commitments to embed third-party safety auditors within the organization, to preserve monitorability of frontier models, and “continue to support an open and transparent culture of dialogue between safety researchers and the rest of the safety ecosystem.”

OpenAI agrees with their recommendations, per the memo.

“Unless the employees take a stand now against this kind of maneuver, I am concerned we will not be the last,” Wang said. “The message to everyone still at OpenAI is clear: raise concerns or work closely with outside safety groups, and you could be next, without being told why. You can’t build AGI safely if the people closest to the risks are afraid to speak.”

This article has been updated with more information from OpenAI.