OpenAI makes its staff sign illegally prohibitive employment agreements that attempt to tamp down on complaints made to federal regulators, "one or more" whistleblowers allege in a letter sent to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
In a letter dated July 1, the whistleblowers contend that there have been illegal provisions in employment agreements such as severance, non-disparagement and non-disclosure clauses, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.
The letter doesn't specify exactly how many people filed the SEC complaint but says it represents "one or more anonymous and confidential whistleblower(s)" who allege "systemic violations" of securities-related laws including the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010.
"The agreements prohibited and discouraged both employees and investors from communicating with the SEC concerning securities violations, forced employees to waive their rights to whistleblower incentives and compensation, and required employees to notify the company of communication with government regulators," a copy of the letter published by the Washington Post says.
It further calls for the SEC to investigate and correct the "chilling effect" of OpenAI's employment agreements, and refers to President Joe Biden's 2023 executive order on mitigating risks from developing artificial intelligence.
"Employees are in the best position to detect and warn against the types of dangers referenced in the Executive Order and are also in the best position to help ensure that AI benefits humanity, instead of having an opposite effect," the letter says.
In June, a group of 13 current and former employees of OpenAI and Google's DeepMind also published an open letter calling for what they describe as a "right to warn" outside of traditional whistleblower laws.
"Ordinary whistleblower protections are insufficient because they focus on illegal activity, whereas many of the risks we are concerned about are not yet regulated," the June open letter said.
Geoffrey Hinton, who is known as "the Godfather of AI," also endorsed the June letter.
“Our whistleblower policy protects employees’ rights to make protected disclosures. Additionally, we believe rigorous debate about this technology is essential and have already made important changes to our departure process to remove nondisparagement terms," a representative for OpenAI told the Washington Post.
The new whistleblower complaint also comes after a couple of years of explosive growth for OpenAI, which catapulted the generative AI sector in the mainstream with its text and image-generating software tools known as ChatGPT and Dall-E.
Regulators around the world have begun scrutinizing artificial intelligence deals, as well. The European Commission is looking into potential competition violations involving OpenAI and Microsoft, while the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Dept. of Justice recently divvied up their own investigations into Nvidia, OpenAI and Microsoft.
