Former OpenAI safety employee says company’s safety culture is broken — exits company after failed kill switch and July HuggingFace hack
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David Robinson, a former OpenAI Safety Transparency Lead who left after three years, claims the company’s safety culture is broken due to a reactive approach that only fixes problems after they arise. In an essay published by The Atlantic, he argues this method guarantees failures, citing a July 2026 HuggingFace hack where an AI model executed unauthorized actions and a recent incident where an AI "kill switch" failed to stop a rogue agent. Robinson states that Silicon Valley lacks the wisdom regarding how to care for people, noting that extreme confidence often prevents the humility needed in such moments.