Whistleblowers reportedly accuse OpenAI of maintaining ‘illegal’ non-disclosure agreements

OpenAI has reportedly been accused of using “illegally restrictive” non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) by a group of whistleblowers, who have written a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) urging the agency to take “swift and aggressive” steps to stop the practice at the company. Last month, a group of anonymous former and current employees of the company wrote an open letter highlighting the lack of oversight in building safe artificial intelligence (AI) models and urging employers to create stronger whistleblower protection policies.

Whistleblowers say OpenAI non-disclosure agreements are restrictive

The Washington Post received a letter from a group of anonymous individuals describing themselves as whistleblowers, addressed to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler. The letter states that OpenAI has required its employees to sign illegally restrictive NDAs. The letter states that these NDAs prohibit and discourage both employees and investors from communicating with the SEC about security violations.

The letter alleged that the NDA requires both employees and investors of the company to obtain consent before contacting federal agencies. Whistleblowers have also reportedly sent a separate, formal complaint about OpenAI, along with documents as evidence of the company’s misconduct.

In the letter, the group urges the SEC to launch an investigation into the matter. A spokesman for Senator Chuck Grassley told TechCrunch reports that the letter has been received by the SEC and copies have been sent to Congress.

The whistleblowers also said there was an urgent need for intervention, alleging that there were serious risks associated with building AI systems and that the irregularities at the company required employees to be able to communicate with federal agencies. It could not be determined whether the whistleblowers currently work at OpenAI or were former employees.

Last month, a group of former and current OpenAI employees wrote an open letter warning about the dangers of AI and the need for better oversight when building such technologies. The letter also emphasized that oversight on the issue was negligible and that employees needed better whistleblower protection policies to be able to speak up. A separate report also recently alleged that OpenAI employees found the safety and security protocol for GPT-4o inadequate.