A senior OpenAI robotics manager resigns over the company’s rushed Pentagon contract, citing concerns over surveillance and lethal autonomy.

LOS ANGELES: A robotics manager at OpenAI has resigned over the company’s defence contract with the Pentagon, criticising the deal’s lack of guardrails against surveillance and lethal autonomous weapons.

Caitlin Kalinowski, who managed the hardware team in the robotics division, announced her resignation on social media platform X. She stated her departure was driven by principle, not personal issues with her colleagues.

“Surveillance of Americans without judicial oversight and lethal autonomy without human authorization are lines that deserved more deliberation than they got,” Kalinowski wrote. She expressed deep care for her team and their collaborative work.

Her primary concern was the rushed nature of the contract announcement made last month. Kalinowski emphasised that proper governance was not established before the deal was publicised.

“To be clear, my issue is that the announcement was rushed without the guardrails defined,” she wrote in a follow-up post. “These are too important for deals or announcements to be rushed.”

OpenAI secured the Pentagon contract hours after its rival, Anthropic, refused to authorise unconditional military use of its Claude AI models. That refusal had prompted backlash from US officials.

Following criticism, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on X that the contract would be modified. He stated the company’s models would not be used for “domestic surveillance of US persons and nationals.”

Kalinowski previously worked at Meta, where she helped develop the company’s augmented reality glasses.

 The Sun Malaysia