The Wall Street Journal reports OpenAI asked three safety researchers to unlock their phones in a leak probe, found disappearing Signal messages, and fired them a week later, which OpenAI disputes as a safety retaliation
New: The three researchers OpenAI fired last month spent the summer fighting to keep AI's chain-of-thought process visible. Then, OpenAI asked to see their Signal chats. A week later, they were let go. More below from @keachhagey, @berber_jin1, and me.
Context
It adds detail to the dispute over whether OpenAI fired researchers for pushing on AI oversight, but the account rests on the researchers' statements and WSJ sourcing, and OpenAI says the firings were for violating information handling policies.
Max Zeff is a Wall Street Journal reporter, and the post shares a WSJ story he wrote with Keach Hagey and Berber Jin. Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak and Mikita Balesni were fired by OpenAI in early October, and on October 9 Reuters reported OpenAI saying an investigation found they violated policies on handling sensitive information. The new WSJ reporting adds the phone checks and the Signal chats. The post was published at 9:13 PM Eastern on October 22.
Deep dive
Max Zeff posted at 9:13 PM Eastern on October 22 that the three researchers OpenAI fired spent the summer fighting to keep an AI system's chain of thought visible, that OpenAI then asked to see their Signal chats, and that a week later they were let go. The attached image is an excerpt of the WSJ story.
Per the excerpt, OpenAI's security team called the three researchers into meetings last month and asked them to unlock their personal phones. The WSJ says the company suspected them of leaking information about its models' internal designs to an external AI safety researcher. Security officers saw that some of the researchers had turned on disappearing messages for Signal chats with that person. A week later, all three were summoned to simultaneous 2 p.m. meetings and fired. Korbak is quoted saying he was told there was a breach of trust because he dealt with a third party through unsanctioned channels.
The Verge, summarizing the WSJ, says the chat was with Ryan Greenblatt, a former chief scientist at Redwood Research, and that OpenAI reportedly accused Greenblatt of leaking details about its Astra model to The Information. The Verge says Greenblatt has denied that. India Today, also citing the WSJ, says the leak probe concerned Astra's opaque recurrence, which could make the model harder to monitor.
OpenAI told the WSJ the researchers were fired for violating clear policies for handling sensitive information and not for raising safety concerns or speaking out. On October 9 OpenAI said an investigation found a significant breach of trust beyond what the researchers' own letter described, and the researchers said they were not the source of The Information's article. OpenAI has not published details of the alleged violations, and the researchers' motives and the underlying leak are unverified.
What to expect next
Watch for any OpenAI response to the new details, and for whether the company publishes specifics of the policy violations it alleges. Casey Newton posted on October 23 that the three researchers gave their first podcast interview, which may add their account. Also watch for reactions from OpenAI's board and safety committees, which the researchers addressed in their October letter, and for whether outside safety evaluators such as Redwood Research and METR comment on the access disputes. None of these steps has been confirmed.