Three researchers fired by OpenAI have written to the company’s board urging it to preserve the ability to monitor advanced AI models and to allow independent safety audits.

Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak and Mikita Balesni sent the letter on October 7. They warned that AI companies risk losing visibility into how advanced systems reason through tasks, a process called chain-of-thought monitoring that safety teams use to detect deceptive or dangerous behaviour.

‘As an industry, we do not yet know how to safely develop and deploy models that we cannot monitor,’ the letter said, according to excerpts reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The trio urged OpenAI to work with third-party auditors and said their firings were ‘chilling those who remain’.

OpenAI dismissed the three on October 1, saying an internal investigation found they mishandled sensitive information. The researchers dispute that account, saying their work with outside parties was within their job mandates.

An OpenAI research leader sent an internal memo this week that ‘strongly agreed’ with the letter’s recommendations, the company said.