OpenAI firings threaten the safety work that depends on dissent
Three fired OpenAI safety researchers say the dismissals are making colleagues afraid to raise risks and work with outside experts, which could weaken independent accountability around advanced models. They deny leaking information about newer architectures whose chain-of-thought reasoning is harder to monitor, and say unclear rules now punish conduct that was previously normal. OpenAI says the firings followed a pattern of mishandling sensitive research, not retaliation for speaking up.