Fired researchers appeal to OpenAI's board to halt development reducing human oversight and call for independent audits
Following·Day 8·first covered 1 Oct 2026·7 sources
Fired OpenAI Researchers Ask Board for Independent AI Audits
The gist
The case raises questions about whether researchers inside frontier AI labs have credible escalation paths for safety concerns that go beyond internal channels. The researchers' appeal targets OpenAI's board directly, seeking external oversight mechanisms at a company that has publicly advocated for independent AI assessments.
The full picture
Three OpenAI safety team researchers dismissed for allegedly sharing confidential information with an external AI safety organization have written to the company's board calling for independent audits and third-party oversight of advanced AI systems. The researchers, two of whom have been named as Tomek Korbak and Mikita Balesni, also asked the board to halt any development that reduces humans' ability to monitor AI reasoning. OpenAI said the dismissals concerned mishandled sensitive information, not the researchers' safety views. Korbak and Balesni co-authored a 2025 paper warning that chain-of-thought monitoring is useful but fragile. The researchers' letter advocates for cooperation with independent safety auditors and greater support for an open safety research environment, and warns that future models could become harder to monitor effectively.
How it developed
Fox Business reports on the firings, noting they occurred amid Sam Altman's public warnings about keeping AI under human control
OpenAI parts ways with three safety team researchers for allegedly sharing confidential information with a third-party AI safety organization
Sources
Rohan Paul Twitter
foxbusiness.com
Related
- Split fromDavid Robinson's OpenAI safety departure
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