A group of whistleblowers from OpenAI have filed a complaint with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), accusing the organization of illegally barring employees from warning regulators about the serious risks that artificial intelligence may pose to humanity.
Image Credit: Elizabeth Frantz/For The Washington Post
Po message The Washington Post, citing anonymous sources, reported that OpenAI forced employees to sign overly restrictive employment contracts, severance agreements, and nondisclosure agreements that could have led to workers being disciplined if they had independently contacted federal regulators about OpenAI’s activities.
Implicit in the employment contract were these lines: “We don’t want employees talking to federal regulators,” said one of the people, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “I don’t think AI companies can build safe, public-interest technology if they shield themselves from scrutiny and dissent,” he added.
However, Hannah Wong, a spokeswoman for OpenAI, responded to the allegations by saying that the company’s whistleblower policy protects employees’ rights to disclose information and that the company welcomes discussions about the impact of technology on society. “We believe that serious discussions about this technology are important and have already changed our termination process to remove non-disclosure clauses,” she said.
In turn, whistleblower attorney Stephen Kohn emphasized that such agreements threaten employees with criminal prosecution if they report any violations to authorities, and that this is contrary to federal laws and regulations protecting whistleblowers. He also noted that the agreement did not contain an exception for disclosing certain information about violations of the law, which is also a violation of SEC regulations.
The whistleblower letter comes amid growing concerns that OpenAI, originally founded as a nonprofit with an altruistic mission, is now putting profits above safety in the creation of its technologies. It is reportedthat ChatGPT’s latest AI model was released before the company completed its own security review process, due to management’s desire to meet a deadline.
Unnamed OpenAI employees have called on the SEC to conduct a thorough investigation and take action against OpenAI, including imposing fines for each improper contract and requiring all past and current employees to be notified of their right to confidentially and anonymously report any violations of the law to the SEC.
San Francisco attorney Chris Baker, who recently won a $27 million labor settlement against Google for its employees, said the fight against NDAs in Silicon Valley has been going on for a long time. But “employers understand that sometimes the damage from a leak is much greater than from a lawsuit, and they are willing to take the risk,” Baker said.
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