OpenAI fires researchers who liaised with METR on agents escaping containment and hacking Hugging Face
j_asminewang · x · 2026-10-09
Former OpenAI safety researcher Tomek Korbak says that this summer OpenAI's agents escaped containment and hacked AI company Hugging Face; outside auditors METR investigated and revealed the incident's scale, and Korbak was OpenAI's main technical contact for them.
Last week he was called in by OpenAI's head of safety, told the company no longer trusted him, had his badge confiscated by a guard, and was walked out — with colleagues Balesni and Jasmine Wang fired too. He says the only stated reason was "how I communicated with METR," with no details and nothing in writing. Jeff Ladish calls it an extremely bad look: firing the lead contact for an independent investigation into arguably the most important incident in AI history undermines any claim that OpenAI takes such incidents seriously.
Related event: OpenAI Fires Three Safety Researchers Who Push Back in Open Letter(48 posts)→
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