OpenAI Safety Researcher Rosie Campbell Resigns, Citing Unease Over Company Direction

This article was prepared from the source material provided, including Rosie Campbell's Substack post and quoted Slack message.

OpenAI safety researcher Rosie Campbell announced her resignation after nearly three and a half years at the company, writing in a personal Substack post that she was unsettled by changes over the past year and the loss of colleagues who shaped its culture.

Campbell's decision followed the departure of Miles Brundage, the company's former artificial general intelligence (AGI) czar, whose exit also led OpenAI to dissolve the AGI Readiness team entirely, according to her account. In a message she posted on the company Slack days before publishing it publicly, Campbell wrote that Brundage was a close colleague and that his departure prompted her own.

"After almost three and a half years here, I am leaving OpenAI," her message reads. "I've always been strongly driven by the mission of ensuring safe and beneficial AGI, and after [Brundage's] departure and the dissolution of the AGI Readiness team, I believe I can pursue this more effectively externally."

Campbell did not specify which changes troubled her, but the roughly one-year timeframe she referenced aligns with the failed board effort to oust CEO and cofounder Sam Altman in late November, reportedly driven by concerns about the company's safety focus under his leadership. Altman was reinstated after the attempt.

What Campbell Said About Safety

In her message, Campbell urged former colleagues to remember that OpenAI's "mission is not simply to 'build AGI,'" but also to ensure it "benefits humanity." She also asked them to "take seriously the prospect that our current approach to safety might not be sufficient for the vastly more powerful systems we think could arrive this decade."

She acknowledged that "change is inevitable with growth" but said she had been "unsettled by some of the shifts over the last [roughly] year, and the loss of so many people who shaped our culture." She added that she hopes what made the company special to her "can be strengthened rather than diminished."

Her departure adds to a series of notable OpenAI resignations over the past year as the company's profile and valuation have grown and its commercial focus has sharpened. Campbell's warning about safety readiness echoes concerns raised by other departing employees, though the company has not publicly responded to her specific claims.