OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has fired two of its researchers, Leopold Aschenbrenner and Pavel Izmailov, for allegedly leaking information. Aschenbrenner was a rising star on OpenAI’s safety team, while Izmailov worked on the company’s reasoning research. The firings come after a reported major AI breakthrough at OpenAI, codenamed Q*, which some were concerned lacked proper safeguards. OpenAI has positioned itself as a leader in responsible AI development, but the firings for information sharing seem to contradict this mission. Elon Musk, an early backer, has criticized OpenAI for becoming a “closed source, maximum-profit company” rather than the open, transparent nonprofit it was intended to be.
