20 Democrats demand OpenAI stop firing safety researchers who talk

Twenty House Democrats, led by Rep. Greg Casar, wrote to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on October 29 demanding answers about the dismissal of three safety researchers, warning the firings could discourage staff from raising concerns about AI safety risks.

OpenAI reportedly examined the researchers' personal phones and found disappearing Signal messages enabled in conversations with an outside researcher, firing them for violating policies on handling sensitive information; the researchers dispute that account, saying they never shared confidential information.

The lawmakers demanded a commitment not to fire whistleblowers who share model-safety information, that OpenAI keep its pause on its most capable models until independent third-party oversight is in place, and a list of all security incidents under investigation — with answers due by November 13 — linking the firings to the Hugging Face agent escape and earlier warnings that models were not being appropriately monitored during testing.