OpenAI says three staffers fired for mishandling ‘sensitive’ information

The three researchers fired by OpenAI are Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak, and Mikita Balesni, according to the WSJ.

All three have regularly posted about AI safety-related issues on X in recent weeks.

“I am at OpenAI and I think AI is >10 per cent likely to kill all humans,” Balesni posted on Sep 10, echoing statements made by other AI employees in recent weeks.

As speculation swirled about why employees at OpenAI and Anthropic were speaking so freely about their personal beliefs, Korbak jumped into the public discourse.

“I’m quite unhappy with much of what OpenAI does. I am very happy that I’m allowed to say ‘I’m quite unhappy with much of what OpenAI does’,” Korbak wrote on Sep 11.

“It’s hard to overstate how dangerous speeding towards RSI is,” Wang posted in response to Coxon’s resignation, referring to recursive self-improvement, which is a technique where software is designed to continuously teach itself.

Leading US tech companies signed a voluntary pledge this week to regulate themselves on safety after meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House.

Trump called it a “morally binding” commitment to build adequate safeguards for fast-moving technology.

Executives from Nvidia, Google, Meta, XAI, OpenAI and Anthropic signed the agreement.