2026-03-09 15:02:12

The head of OpenAI’s robotics team has resigned from the AI company amid concerns about the firm’s recent deal with the US Department of War.

Caitlin Kalinowski, who has worked at the ChatGPT developer since 2024, claimed that her decision was based around the company’s governance and the necessity to clearly define safety guardrails around its tech.

OpenAI boss Sam Altman announced the deal with the Pentagon last month, shortly after US President Donald Trump’s administration revealed that he plans to terminate a contract with rival company Anthropic after it expressed concern about how its Claude chatbot would be used.

The deal between the US government and OpenAI sparked a backlash from dozens of employees – who signed an open letter calling for the company to adopt the same stance as Anthropic.

Kalinowski announced her resignation in a LinkedIn post over the weekend, where she revealed that she had decided to leave OpenAI because of how the deal with the US Department of War was made.

She felt that the announcement was “rushed” and did not define the necessary safety guardrails.

Kalinowski wrote: “This wasn’t an easy call. AI has an important role in national security.

“But surveillance of Americans without judicial oversight and lethal autonomy without human authorisation are lines that deserved more deliberation than they got.”

She explained that she aims to continue working on building physical AI devices that are focused on safety.

Altman has since acknowledged that the initial announcement of the Department of War deal appeared “opportunistic and sloppy” and revealed that he has sought to amend the deal to include additional safeguards.

OpenAI said that the language in the new deal “makes explicit that our tools will not be used to conduct surveillance of US persons”, nor will they be used for lethal autonomous weapons.

The statement read: “We think our agreement has more guardrails than any previous agreement for classified AI deployments, including Anthropic’s.

“In our agreement, we protect our red lines through a more expansive, multi-layered approach. We retain full discretion over our safety stack, we deploy via cloud, cleared OpenAI personnel are in the loop, and we have strong contractual protections.”

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