Fired OpenAI safety researchers hit back
Good morning, AI enthusiasts, and welcome to the 4,619 new readers who joined us yesterday. Weeks after pledging to open its doors to outside safety experts, OpenAI fired three of its own safety researchers, saying they mishandled sensitive information. But that was not the end of it.
Now, all three are hitting back, warning that the company’s open safety culture and CEO Sam Altman’s promise of bringing in external experts may be slipping away.
In today’s AI rundown:
Fired OpenAI researchers flag ‘shifting lines’
Rowan’s Corner: I tested every personal AI agent
Clean up a messy Excel report with Claude
Anthropic prohibits abuse or cruelty against Claude
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
OPENAI
Image source: Mikita Balesni / X
The Rundown: Researchers Tomek Korbak, Jasmine Wang, and Mikita Balesni, whom OpenAI fired for mishandling sensitive info, just went public with their side of the story, denying the claims and warning that their firings are “chilling” OpenAI’s safety culture.
The details:
In an open letter, the trio said they acted within their job mandates, warning that if past conduct is now grounds for firing, staff are left guessing where the line is.
Detailing individual cases, they denied leaking a story about less monitorable AI and said their outside work stayed within policy, with leadership in the loop.
Wang said her access to an executive’s email was delegated for recruiting, and that she reported accidentally opening a sensitive message within minutes.
They warned the firings could give OpenAI cover to skip embedding outside auditors, and urged it to protect its open culture and model monitorability.
OpenAI agreed with the recommendations but clarified to TechCrunch that the firings weren’t about raising concerns and that they had a “pattern of misconduct.”
Why it matters: Whatever led to the firings, claims of shifting norms and a possible auditor pullback aren’t a great look, especially after OpenAI’s Superalignment fallout and a recent safety exit over a “broken” culture. Anthropic has already got its first evaluator, and only action from OpenAI (which is yet to be seen) can put these concerns to rest.
TOGETHER WITH WIZ
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This bundle offers:
Access to AI security-focused resources in one place
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ROWAN’S CORNER
Screenshot from my GrokBot app
Rowan: If you’ve been following the newsletter, you’re well aware of the wave of personal AI agents launched over the last few weeks: Meta’s Muse, SpaceXAI’s GrokBot, OpenAI’s Dots, Hermes, OpenClaw, and, as of yesterday, Hark Pro.
I’ve been testing them all, and while most do similar things, GrokBot stands out the most for my current personal use cases. It’s the most seamless on my phone, and its real-time access to X is a massive advantage for anyone who wants to monitor anything.
Here are my favorite routines, which can all be set up in under an hour:
Every morning, GrokBot finds real AI use cases being shared on X and filters out the “10 prompts” hype threads.
It catches every mention of The Rundown on X, labels it, and pings our team on Slack to respond (try tweeting us @therundownai and see what happens).
Every four hours, it listens for people searching and reviewing AI newsletters on X, so we know exactly what readers are looking for.
Each morning, it reads my phone contacts and reminds me to follow up with the new people I just met in person (I meet A LOT of people at events).
I shared all 4 exact prompts in our Workflow Hub, copy-paste ready.
Have you tried personal agents? If you’ve built something cool, share it in the Hub for a chance to be featured in the newsletter.
AI TRAINING
The Rundown: In this guide, you’ll use Claude inside Excel to clean up a messy sales export, fix a wrong total, and build a report. You’ll check the numbers and test whether a new order updates the chart.
Step-by-step:
Install the official Claude add-in and open a copy of your workbook. Pro members can use our practice file and keep the reference workbook closed until they finish
Tell Claude what each row means and which orders to count. Ask it to find duplicate rows, missing details, and formula mistakes before changing anything
Approve the fixes on a separate sheet. Keep the original data and ask for a record of each change, including any rows left out
Build a monthly report with formulas and a chart. Check the order count, refunds, and sales total against the source rows
Add a test order and check that the report and chart update. Remove it and confirm the original totals return before saving your finished workbook
Pro tip: A spreadsheet can show a wrong total without showing an error. Ask Claude to explain which rows it counted, then check a few yourself. Our Pro members get the practice workbook, checked reference, prompts, and answer key.
PRESENTED BY GARTNER
The Rundown: As AI agents gain autonomy, weak governance can lead to unintended business risks. This Gartner webinar shows how to embed governance into workflows and keep control as AI agents scale.
In this webinar, you’ll learn to:
Mitigate AI agent production risks
Embed governance into engineering and operational workflows
Scale accountability and oversight as agent adoption grows
ANTHROPIC
Image source: GPT Images 2.5 / The Rundown
The Rundown: Anthropic published its annual usage policy update with a bunch of changes, including one that bars users from subjecting its Claude models to “sustained and needless” abuse — its first rule aimed at protecting the AI rather than people.
The details:
Taking effect Nov. 12, the rule applies only to extreme cases of repeated, purposeless cruelty, not frustration, pushback, dark creative themes, or testing.
If a user is suspected of violating the rule, Anthropic could throttle, limit, suspend, or terminate their access to its products and services, or just give them a warning.
The company has noted Claude ending such chats by itself, a feature introduced last year, which will remain the main enforcement approach.
The move builds on Anthropic’s AI welfare work, and follows its reported meetings with religious leaders about Claude’s morals and possible consciousness.
Why it matters: Anthropic says it doesn’t know if Claude is conscious, and this rule acts on that doubt. Not everyone agrees with the approach, though, including Microsoft AI’s Mustafa Suleyman, who argues models can’t feel or suffer and warns that treating them as if they might could eventually make AI harder to control from the safety front.
QUICK HITS
COMMUNITY AI WORKFLOW OF THE DAY
▸ Andrew used AI to revive a 15-year-old MinecraftEdu world
Today’s workflow comes from reader Andrew Bartlett:
“MinecraftEdu launched 15 years ago, but the classroom world we built with it is still growing. Years of students have contributed to the school and town-building project, creating a shared record of their creativity and learning. Getting it running on a modern Mac meant preserving that history and giving the next group of students a way to add their own chapter.
Finding the right version of Java — the software MinecraftEdu needs to run — was central to the process. We used OpenAI’s Codex, powered by GPT-6, to examine the old setup, research compatibility issues, and test what would work. An older Java version launched the client, but resizing its window caused it to crash. ChatGPT read the crash reports and tested a newer Java 8 version, which gave us a setup that could launch the game and handle window resizing.
ChatGPT also repaired the server launcher and created standalone apps, using Apple’s Rosetta to run the older software on Apple Silicon. The result is a usable MinecraftEdu setup on modern hardware with the existing worlds preserved. We can now continue teaching and building in a place that successive classes of students have helped create.”
See Andrew’s workflow Visit The Rundown University. How do you use AI? Tell us for a chance to be featured.
🧠 Haiku 5.5 - Anthropic’s new budget Claude model
🤖 Gemini 4 Argon - Google’s new frontier model challenging GPT and Claude
🎮️ Playground - Google’s experimental AI tool to create and play browser games
🤖Hark Pro - Hark’s new proactive AI assistant
President Trump called those who refuse to call AI “Super Intelligence” “THE ENEMY,” following his executive order officially directing federal agencies to adopt the term.
Independent researcher Pavel Rabtsevich used Claude Code and Codex to identify a potential new planet hidden in NASA telescope data dating back to 2018.
Anthropic launched Claude Dashboards and Motion, letting users turn their data into interactive dashboards and prompts into editable, animated explainers.
Anthropic also launched OSS Scanner, a free service that uses its strongest models, Mythos included, to scan open-source projects for vulnerabilities and suggest fixes.
The Association for Human Mathematics condemned OAI’s 700+ mathematical documents as a show of “power,” urging researchers to stop working with the company.
Read our last AI newsletter: AI’s next frontier is the human cell
Read our last Tech newsletter: A breakout moment for AI medicine
Read our last Robotics newsletter: Meet Roger, the bomb-squad humanoid
Today’s AI tool guide: Clean up a messy Excel report with Claude
RSVP to next workshop on Oct. 21: Getting real work out of Microsoft Copilot
That's it for today!Before you go we’d love to know what you thought of today's newsletter to help us improve The Rundown experience for you. |
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See you soon,
Rowan, Zach, Shubham, Jennifer, and Nate — the humans behind The Rundown
