Fired OpenAI safety researchers dispute misconduct claims, warn of chilling effect

本文为原文前 6,000 字符的节选翻译，完整内容请查看原文。

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.

上周被 OpenAI 解雇的三名安全研究人员 Jasmine Wang、Tomek Korbak 和 Mikita Balesni 发表了一封公开信，否认了公司关于他们违规处理敏感信息的指控，并警告称，他们的解雇释放出一种寒蝉效应，将对公司文化产生连锁反应。

“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.”

“我们担心，围绕我们被解雇的内部和外部沟通，已经让我们的前同事们不敢再像上周之前那样去发言和工作，而这些行为此前一直是 OpenAI 工作中不可或缺的一部分，”研究人员周四在致 OpenAI 安全与安保委员会、安全咨询小组及使命咨询委员会的公开信中写道。这些研究人员上周被解雇，原因据称是向第三方人工智能安全组织分享了公司机密信息。OpenAI 表示，他们“访问并处理敏感公司信息”的行为违反了公司政策。

“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.”

“人工智能不是一种普通的技术，OpenAI 也不是一家普通的公司，”Wang、Korbak 和 Balesni 写道。“我们这些从事安全工作的人比任何人都更早看到风险，我们依靠与外部专家的密切合作来找出解决这些风险的方法。能够无所畏惧地这样做，并拥有明确的内部程序来支持这项工作，本身就是一种至关重要的安全机制。”

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.

他们表示，他们的解雇代表了 OpenAI 文化中更广泛的转变，而这种文化过去曾鼓励员工“提出安全担忧并公开表达不同意见”。他们称，当一个月前被认为是正常的行为现在突然成为解雇理由时，员工们现在“不清楚自己的处境”。

“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.”

“鉴于围绕人工智能发展的重大安全担忧，绝不能让员工在恐惧和规则不明的环境中工作，这会阻碍人工智能安全工作并削弱第三方问责制，”他们写道。“像我们这样被如此突然地执行和通报的解雇，正在冷却 OpenAI 过去所珍视的开放文化。”

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.

在信中，这三人否认参与了向《The Information》泄露有关 OpenAI 最新模型中较难监控的架构的信息，这些架构使得思维链推理更难被监控。他们还否认在工作职责之外与外部方进行接触。

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.”

OpenAI 尚未正式回应这封公开信，但与 TechCrunch 分享了一份归属于某位研究负责人的内部备忘录，赞扬了这三名研究人员对人工智能安全的贡献，并否认他们是因报复而被解雇。“我想明确指出，这些决定与提出安全担忧或公开发言无关，”备忘录写道。“我们一直鼓励这样做，未来也将继续。我们不会因为员工提出担忧而解雇他们。”

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.

另外，OpenAI 发言人告诉 TechCrunch，这三人是在一项调查揭示了“不当行为模式”后被解雇的，这种行为“明显违反了我们关于不当处理研究信息的政策”，且超出了与外部人工智能评估小组分享信息的范畴。OpenAI 没有直接回答 TechCrunch 关于研究人员具体违反了哪些政策、解雇的具体情况，或公司如何保护提出安全担忧并与外部评估人员合作的员工等问题。

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.

此次解雇引发了人们对其处境的猜测，特别是在 OpenAI 因近期涉及流氓智能体和模型泄露的安全事件而面临审查之际。这封信还提到了研究人员对 Hugging Face 事件的回应，在该事件中，一群智能体突破了沙盒并侵入了外部系统。

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.

信中称，该事件和调查是“史无前例的”，意味着“内部政策是在实时制定的”。根据信件内容，由于调查的敏感性，Korbak 认为他通过与外部安全评估人员密切沟通以建立信任的行为是在 OpenAI 的政策和规范之内。

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.

与此同时，Balesni 也在内部致力于解决日益严重的人工智能可监控性问题，研究人员在信中称，这项工作“只有通过与外部各方的广泛沟通才能成功”。根据信件，Balesni 在整个工作过程中与 OpenAI 董事会成员和高管进行了协调并得到了他们的支持。

“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.”

“在此过程中，Mikita 一直向其汇报线确认，并注意在分享材料前删除敏感细节，”信中写道。“他始终本着诚信原则，并在当时公司规范的范围内行事。”

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.”

在 X 平台的一条独立帖文中，Wang 解释了她被解雇的更多细节，称 OpenAI 告诉她，她被解雇是因为她访问了一位高管的电子邮件。“OpenAI 为了招聘目的将该访问权限委托给了我，”她写道。“当我不再需要它时，我要求 IT 部门将其移除。他们没有执行我的请求，我自己也无法移除，而且该收件箱在我的手机邮件应用中以一种无法区分的方式合并在一起。当我误打开一封敏感邮件时，我在几分钟内就告诉了那位高管，并再次要求 IT 部门处理。这一切都没有隐瞒。”

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.”

Wang 接着表示，解雇背后的原因“站不住脚”，她和她的同事“并不是第一批在可疑情况下被挤出 OpenAI 的人”。研究人员呼吁 OpenAI 遵守其公开承诺，在组织内嵌入第三方安全审计员，保持前沿模型的可监控性，并“继续支持安全研究人员与安全生态系统其他部分之间开放透明的对话文化”。

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.”

根据备忘录，OpenAI 同意他们的建议。“除非员工现在站出来反对这种手段，否则我担心我们不会是最后一批，”Wang 说。“对于所有仍在 OpenAI 工作的人来说，信息很明确：提出担忧或与外部安全小组密切合作，下一个可能就是你。”