David Robinson, who wrote the safety reports accompanying OpenAI's major model releases, resigned this week and published an editorial in The Atlantic arguing that the industry's 'culture is broken' and calling for nuclear-level safeguards. Bloomberg reports his departure adds to a growing chorus of employees warning that leading AI labs are not doing enough to mitigate risk, and he argues that top firms aren't doing enough to mitigate the technology's risks. The resignation lands as regulators escalate scrutiny: California's Attorney General has served OpenAI with an investigative subpoena amid a wave of cybersecurity incident disclosures, following reports of an expanding FTC probe. Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman publicly stated that 'the world should accept some bad things happening' as a cost of AI development — a stance that drew immediate, bipartisan backlash from politicians including Ron DeSantis, JB Pritzker, and Elizabeth Warren, and from everyday users online. Altman's push for a 'lighter touch' approach to AI regulation comes as Representatives from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and Meta testified at the first-ever New York City Council hearing on AI safety, with former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warning that the race to develop AI poses risks the industry doesn't fully understand. The converging criticism from inside and outside the industry highlights mounting tension between rapid AI deployment and meaningful oversight.
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