The Verge: Democrats push Sam Altman on OpenAI’s safety record

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Lori Trahan (D-MA) are calling for answers about how OpenAI handles whistleblowers and safety reviews after former employees complained that internal criticism is often stifled.

"Given the discrepancy between your public comments and reports of OpenAI's actions, we request information about OpenAI's whistleblower and conflict of interest protections in order to understand whether federal intervention may be necessary," Warren and Trahan wrote in a letter exclusively shared with The Verge.

The lawmakers cited several instances where OpenAI’s safety procedures have been called into question. For example, they said, in 2022, an unreleased version of GPT-4 was being tested in a new version of the Microsoft Bing search engine in India before receiving approval from OpenAI’s safety board. They also recalled OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s brief ousting from the company in 2023 as a result of the board’s concerns, in part, "over commercializing advances before understanding the consequences."

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