OpenAI whistleblowers have filed a complaint alleging OpenAI NDAs illegally prohibited its employees from warning regulators about technology risks.

According to The Washington Post (OpenAI illegally barred staff from airing safety risks, whistleblowers say, written by Pranshu Verma, Cat Zakrzewski and Nitasha Tiku and available here), whistleblowers alleged the artificial intelligence company illegally prohibited its employees from warning regulators about the grave risks its technology may pose to humanity and asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to probe company’s allegedly restrictive non-disclosure agreements.

The “anonymous and confidential” whistleblowers said OpenAI issued its employees overly restrictive employment, severance and nondisclosure agreements that could have led to penalties against workers who raised concerns about OpenAI to federal regulators, according to a seven-page letter sent to the SEC commissioner earlier this month that referred to the formal complaint.

OpenAI made staff sign employee agreements that required them to waive their federal rights to whistleblower compensation, the letter said. These agreements also required OpenAI staff to get prior consent from the company if they wished to disclose information to federal authorities. OpenAI NDAs did not create exemptions in its employee nondisparagement clauses for disclosing securities violations to the SEC.

These overly broad agreements violated long-standing federal laws and regulations meant to protect whistleblowers who wish to reveal damning information about their company anonymously and without fear of retaliation, the letter said.

“These contracts sent a message that ‘we don’t want … employees talking to federal regulators,’” said one of the whistleblowers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “I don’t think that AI companies can build technology that is safe and in the public interest if they shield themselves from scrutiny and dissent.”

Gee, you think?

The whistleblowers’ letter comes amid concerns that OpenAI, which started as a nonprofit with an altruistic mission, is putting profit before safety in creating its technology. The Post reported Friday that OpenAI rushed out its latest AI model that fuels ChatGPT to meet a May release date set by company leaders, despite employee concerns that the company “failed” to live up to its own security testing protocol that it said would keep its AI safe from catastrophic harms, like teaching users to build bioweapons or helping hackers develop new kinds of cyberattacks.

That May release date, of course, was for ChatGPT 4o. Ruh-roh. 🙁

Of course, OpenAI has stated that they “have already made important changes to our departure process to remove nondisparagement terms”. Uh, what about employees still there, OpenAI? They also stated the company “didn’t cut corners on our safety process, though we recognize the launch was stressful for our teams.”

This will be, to say the least, an interesting story to follow, as is any story involving “anonymous whistleblowers”. Looks like the OpenAI soap opera is back with another episode!

So, what do you think? Are you surprised that OpenAI NDAs are reportedly so restrictive? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Image created using GPT-4o’s Image Creator Powered by DALL-E, using the term “robot wearing an eye mask and blowing a small whistle”.

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