Caitlin Kalinowski resigns citing rushed governance and insufficient safeguards around surveillance and autonomous weapons
Caitlin Kalinowski has resigned as head of hardware at OpenAI, citing concerns about the company's agreement with the US Department of Defense.
Kalinowski, who joined OpenAI in November 2024 after leading augmented reality glasses development at Meta, announced her departure in a social media post on Sunday.
"Surveillance of Americans without judicial oversight and lethal autonomy without human authorisation are lines that deserved more deliberation than they got," she wrote.
In a follow-up post, Kalinowski clarified that her objection was primarily one of process rather than policy, describing the announcement as "rushed without the guardrails defined."
She was careful to distinguish her concerns from personal grievances, saying the decision was "about principle, not people" and expressing respect for chief executive Sam Altman and the wider team.
OpenAI confirmed her departure, stating that its Pentagon agreement "creates a workable path for responsible national security uses of AI" while maintaining red lines against domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons.
The deal was struck after negotiations between the Pentagon and Anthropic, the AI company behind the Claude chatbot, collapsed when Anthropic sought contractual protections against mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons use.
The Pentagon subsequently designated Anthropic a supply-chain risk, a decision Anthropic said it would challenge in court.
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OpenAI moved quickly to fill the gap, announcing an agreement allowing its technology to be used in classified environments, with executives describing a "multi-layered approach" combining contractual language and technical safeguards.
The episode appears to have affected OpenAI's standing with consumers: ChatGPT uninstalls rose 295% following the announcement, while Claude climbed to the top of the US App Store charts.
