OpenAI's safety crisis keeps getting worse and the company keeps making it worse

Back in May 2024, OpenAI's head of super AI safety Jan Leike torched his relationship with the company when he publicly slammed his former employer and left for Anthropic. Safety culture and processes were falling behind OpenAI's "shiny products," Leike said. Since then, OpenAI hasn't caught a break, lurching from one incident to the next. The latest was the Hugging Face hack, which seemed to confirm every fear, validated critics, and, as we now know, went far beyond Hugging Face. Ad The firing of three safety researchers tied to the incident has made things worse. In an open letter to OpenAI's Safety and Security Committee, Safety Advisory Group, and Mission Advisory Council, the three warn that their terminations are scaring the employees who remain.