AI Tech / news
OpenAI Safety Staffer David Robinson Resigns, Says Company Culture Is 'Broken'
David Robinson, who spent three and a half years at OpenAI writing the safety reports that accompanied its major product launches, has resigned in a published essay arguing the company's culture is broken.
Robinson opened by calling himself "something of a cliché" — a departing employee at a leading AI company issuing a warning on the way out the door. In the essay, he said he led the drafting of safety reports tied to OpenAI's major product launches, and that a three-and-a-half-year tenure placed him among the longest-serving people at the company.
His criticism is aimed less at rules than at organizational behavior. Robinson argued that the debate over AI safety needs to move beyond "specific rules or new laws" and take on the broader culture inside the companies building the technology.
He described OpenAI's development style as trial and error, writing that the company "has thrived by trial and error (which it calls 'iterative deployment'), looking for problems and improving its guardrails in response."
The resignation echoes Jacob Coxon, a researcher who worked at both OpenAI and Anthropic before quitting and declaring that such companies are "gambling with our lives." Coxon's exit fed a wider argument about AI safety, prompting Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to set out a plan for more cautious AI development.
The issue has also reached Washington. AI executives met with President Donald Trump this week and signed what appeared to be a hastily written, non-binding pledge to implement more safety measures.
Robinson's essay suggests OpenAI's cultural problems are shared across Silicon Valley rather than unique to his former employer. It arrives amid reporting focused on how CEO Sam Altman has lost the trust of former colleagues.