OpenAI Fires Three Safety Researchers Who Wrote Chain-of-Thought Monitorability Paper
Don't Worry About the Vase (Zvi) · rss · 2026-10-13
Zvi Mowshowitz analyzes OpenAI's firing of safety researchers Tomek Korbak, Mikita Balesni, and Jasmine Wang, ostensibly for 'mishandling sensitive company information.' The three published an open letter saying they were fired for safety advocacy, calling on OpenAI to embed third-party auditors, preserve frontier model monitorability (they led the influential CoT monitorability paper), and keep an open safety dialogue. All had recently voiced public safety concerns, from the 'pacing the frontier' petition to >10% extinction risk estimates. OpenAI claims an additional unnamed breach of trust; outside observers overwhelmingly side with the researchers and warn of a chilling effect on internal dissent.
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