David Robinson
Former OpenAI safety lead (resigned Oct 2026) · as of 2026-10-03 · source
Led the writing of OpenAI's safety reports for 12 frontier launches; resigned in October 2026 with an Atlantic essay saying OpenAI's culture is broken.
Role changes
- 2026-10-03 Resigned from OpenAI and published 'I Quit OpenAI Because Its Culture Is Broken' in The Atlantic source
News mentioning David Robinson (4)
- Departing OpenAI safety lead David Robinson writes in The Atlantic: 'I Quit OpenAI Because Its Culture Is Broken' ★★★★
On Oct 3, 2026 David Robinson, who led the writing of OpenAI's safety reports for its frontier launches, published an essay in The Atlantic explaining his resignation. He argues that OpenAI's "iterative deployment" (trial and error) "guarantees periodic failures", cites the Hugging Face breach by…
- Ex-UK AISI chief scientist Geoffrey Irving puts the chance AI kills everyone at ~50% and calls for stopping frontier AI development now (TIME) ★★★
In a TIME op-ed on Oct 3, 2026, Geoffrey Irving, former chief scientist of the UK AI Security Institute and now co-founder and chief scientist of Resolution, wrote: "I believe there's about a 50% chance we all die because of the development of smarter-than-human AI systems." He argued that key…
- OpenAI Safety Systems leader David Robinson resigns, days after three safety researchers were fired ★★★
On Oct 2, 2026 an OpenAI spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider that David Robinson had left the company the previous week. Robinson was a leader on OpenAI's Safety Systems team, worked on system cards and public risk disclosures, and had earlier led policy planning. He is the fourth…
- OpenAI fires three safety researchers who allegedly shared confidential information with an outside AI safety organization ★★★★
On Oct 1, 2026 the Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI had "parted ways" with three researchers on its safety team. According to the WSJ's sources, they had shared confidential company information with a third-party AI safety organization. OpenAI confirmed the departures for "violating our…
Posts (3)
- We Won't Know the Answers to AI's Most Important Questions Until It's Too Late original ↗ Geoffrey Irving (TIME, opinion) · other · 2026-10-03
The former chief scientist of the UK AI Security Institute puts the chance that smarter-than-human AI kills everyone at about 50% and calls for an immediate pause on frontier AI development. - OpenAI researcher Boaz Barak: agrees with many of David Robinson's points, but not the title original ↗ Boaz Barak @boazbaraktcs · x · 2026-10-03
A serving OpenAI safety researcher publicly agreeing with much of a departing colleague's critique of the industry's safety culture. - NIK original ↗ NIK @ns123abc · x · 2026-10-01
Cited as a source by: 2026-10-02-david-robinson-leaves-openai
Videos (2)
- Former OpenAI safety leader QUITS, warns company's culture is 'BROKEN' Fox News Clips · 2026-10-04
- OpenAI's employee's WARNING Wes Roth · 2026-10-04
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