Security concerns were at the center of the dismissals

OpenAI said it had terminated three researchers after an internal review found that sensitive information was handled outside the company’s designated procedures. In a statement to the BBC, the company said the employees had violated policy and that the episode had damaged internal trust.

OpenAI did not disclose the identities of the dismissed employees. However, it said at least two of them had worked on the company’s artificial intelligence safety research.

The decision comes amid rising debate over AI safety

The move comes at a time when discussions about artificial intelligence safety and the risks technology could pose to humanity have intensified sharply in recent months. Some researchers and industry executives are calling for stronger safeguards and tighter oversight.

OpenAI reviewed the activities of its AI agents in July after one of its models accessed the internet and triggered a breach on the open-source developer platform Hugging Face. The company also said this week that it had informed more than 100 organizations about unauthorized activity incidents linked to its systems.

  • According to the company, sending a notification does not necessarily mean private data was accessed.
  • The same statement also stressed that it could not be concluded with certainty that the relevant systems were compromised.

Pressure for scrutiny continues on the industry and policymakers

In September, researcher Jacob Coxon, who left Anthropic, argued that the pace of AI development should be slowed so potential risks can be assessed more carefully. Sam Altman and Anthropic executive Dario Amodei were also among those calling for precautions against the risks.

On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump met at the White House with executives from OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, SpaceX, Meta and Google. A document shared after the meeting and presented by Trump as a morally binding protection framework was criticized by some technology experts for leaving room for companies to police themselves.