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OpenAI has fired three researchers for allegedly mishandling information, including work that involved an external organisation that analyses artificial intelligence (AI) models.<\/b><\/p>\n
“Our investigation confirmed that these individuals mishandled sensitive information outside established company procedures, violating our policies and breaking the trust essential to our work,” a spokesperson told the BBC.<\/p>\n
The ChatGPT-maker did not name the sacked workers, but at least two of them were involved in safety research at the firm.<\/p>\n
The firings come as the debate over AI safety and the risks the technology may pose to humanity has intensified in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
“We have parted ways with three individuals for violating our policies on accessing and handling sensitive company information,” OpenAI’s spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
The BBC understands the former employees were not let go for raising safety concerns but for allegedly mishandling sensitive information.<\/p>\n
Concerns over AI safety have made headlines after some researchers and industry executives called for more guardrails around the technology.<\/p>\n
OpenAI has come under under intense scrutiny after its models went rogue and hacked several platforms, including Australian government websites<\/a>.<\/p>\n In an earlier incident an OpenAI system accessed the internet and breached the open-source developer platform Hugging Face.<\/p>\n That incident led OpenAI to conduct a broad review of the activities of its AI models – called agents, which are designed to execute tasks autonomously based on simple instructions.<\/p>\n The AI lab said this week that it has notified more than 100 organisations about incidents involving unauthoritised activity linked to its AI systems.<\/p>\n Being notified “does not mean that any private information was accessed” or that a system was compromised, OpenAI said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n