‘The OpenAI Files’ report, assembling voices of concerned ex-staff, claims the world’s most prominent AI lab is betraying safety for profit. What began as a noble quest to ensure AI would serve all of humanity is now teetering on the edge of becoming just another corporate giant, chasing immense profits while leaving safety and ethics in the dust.
At the core of it all is a plan to tear up the original rulebook. When OpenAI started, it made a crucial promise: it put a cap on how much money investors could make. It was a legal guarantee that if they succeeded in creating world-changing AI, the vast benefits would flow to humanity, not just a handful of billionaires. Now, that promise is on the verge of being erased, apparently to satisfy investors who want unlimited returns.
For the people who built OpenAI, this pivot away from AI safety feels like a profound betrayal. “The non-profit mission was a promise to do the right thing when the stakes got high,” says former staff member Carroll Wainwright. “Now that the stakes are high, the non-profit structure is being abandoned, which means the promise was ultimately empty.”
Deepening crisis of trust
Many of these deeply worried voices point to one person: CEO Sam Altman. The concerns are not new. Reports suggest that even at his previous companies, senior colleagues tried to have him removed for what they called “deceptive and chaotic” behaviour.
That same feeling of mistrust followed him to OpenAI. The company’s own co-founder, Ilya Sutskever, who worked alongside Altman for years, and since launched his own startup, came to a chilling conclusion: “I don’t think Sam is the guy who should have the finger on the button for AGI.” He felt Altman was dishonest and created chaos, a terrifying combination for someone potentially in charge of our collective future.
Mira Murati, the former CTO, felt just as uneasy. “I don’t feel comfortable about Sam leading us to AGI,” she said. She described a toxic pattern where Altman would tell people what they wanted to hear and then undermine them if they got in his way. It suggests manipulation that former OpenAI board member Tasha McCauley says “should be unacceptable” when the AI safety stakes are this high.
This crisis of trust has had real-world consequences. Insiders say the culture at OpenAI has shifted, with the crucial work of AI safety taking a backseat to releasing “shiny products”. Jan Leike, who led the team responsible for long-term safety, said they were “sailing against the wind,” struggling to get the resources they needed to do their vital research.
Another former employee, William Saunders, even gave a terrifying testimony to the US Senate, revealing that for long periods, security was so weak that hundreds of engineers could have stolen the company’s most advanced AI, including GPT-4.
Desperate plea to prioritise AI safety at OpenAI
But those who’ve left aren’t just walking away. They’ve laid out a roadmap to pull OpenAI back from the brink, a last-ditch effort to save the original mission.
They’re calling for the company’s nonprofit heart to be given real power again, with an iron-clad veto over safety decisions. They’re demanding clear, honest leadership, which includes a new and thorough investigation into the conduct of Sam Altman.
They want real, independent oversight, so OpenAI can’t just mark its own homework on AI safety. And they are pleading for a culture where people can speak up about their concerns without fearing for their jobs or savings—a place with real protection for whistleblowers.
Finally, they are insisting that OpenAI stick to its original financial promise: the profit caps must stay. The goal must be public benefit, not unlimited private wealth.
This isn’t just about the internal drama at a Silicon Valley company. OpenAI is building a technology that could reshape our world in ways we can barely imagine. The question its former employees are forcing us all to ask is a simple but profound one: who do we trust to build our future?
As former board member Helen Toner warned from her own experience, “internal guardrails are fragile when money is on the line”.
Right now, the people who know OpenAI best are telling us those safety guardrails have all but broken.
See also: AI adoption matures but deployment hurdles remain
Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is co-located with other leading events including Intelligent Automation Conference, BlockX, Digital Transformation Week, and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo.
Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.
