OpenAI safety team member resigns, writes essay urging the industry to talk about culture
sebpaquet · x · 2026-10-05
Douglass Robinson (@dgrobinson), who worked on OpenAI's safety team, resigned this week and published an essay in The Atlantic. He argues that looking deeper than specific rules or new laws is needed — the industry must talk about culture, i.e. organization-level safety practices.
Commentator @MCofA calls it the best "I quit my AI job over safety concerns" essay yet, because it is the first to treat safety practically, as a topic with an extensive literature and established best practices in analogous fields, rather than vague doom-saying.
It marks another high-profile safety-driven departure from OpenAI and the first to systematically argue for a positive safety-culture agenda.
Related event: OpenAI Safety Veteran David Robinson Resigns, Blasting Company Culture(17 posts)→
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