Perspective
In 2024, an OpenAI researcher, Daniel Kokotajlo, faced a choice no one should have to make, between nearly $2 million in vested equity or his right to warn the public about the technology he was helping build. He chose the warning and gambled the money because he would not sign a lifelong non-disparagement agreement. The company backed down in the face of media coverage; the law offered scant protection. Kokotajlo was not an isolated case; he is one of 13 current and former employees of OpenAI and Google DeepMind who, in June 2024, signed an open letter titled “A Right to Warn about Advanced Artificial Intelligence.” They complained that broad confidentiality agreements “block us from voicing our concerns,” and ordinary whistleblower laws, which protect those who report violations of the law, didn’t help because the risks they feared weren’t illegal yet.
The pattern continues. In January, a senior OpenAI’s safety executive was fired within weeks of objecting to a risky product launch and raising child-safety concerns. The company said her departure had nothing to do with what she’d raised and pinned it on “sexual discrimination against a male employee,”which she flatly denies. The trouble is that almost no one can prove her firing was retaliation, and that is its own message to everyone still inside the company. Employees like these see AI’s risks first, and they are telling us that they cannot speak freely.
Good whistleblower law succeeds when it is tailored...
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