Whistleblowers have asked the SEC to investigate OpenAI over illegal NDAs.
Parties representing anonymized data from artificial intelligence firm OpenAI have reportedly filed a complaint with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission alleging the firm used illegal non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).
Documents provided exclusively to The Washington Post report that a group of whistleblowers linked to OpenAI filed a complaint with the SEC in June alleging the company forced former employees to sign restrictive and illegal NDAs to prevent them from discussing security and others. Concerns with federal agents.
Illegal NDAs?
According to the post, the documents received, attached hereto, were sent to the newspaper by the office of Senator Chuck Grassley.
“A copy of the letter to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has been sent to Congress. The Post obtained the hacked letter from Grassley's office.”
In comments published by the Post, Grassley appeared to side with the pointers. He said that “OpenAI's policies and practices appear to have an impact on whistleblowers' right to speak” and that “OpenAI's nondisclosure agreements should be changed.”
The document — which has yet to be made public — refers to the original complaint, which was addressed specifically to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler. The text in the document underscores the urgency of the situation, stating that the SEC will take “swift and aggressive actions” to enforce rules related to antitrust laws and President Biden's executive order to help domestic technology agencies build safe, secure, and reliable AI systems. A reliable way.
The White House executive is basically toothless – it doesn't mention the law and it doesn't give any punishment for tolerance – it outlines the attitude of the current administration to the sector.
Open AI response
The company appears to be trying to distance itself from its past practices related to NDAs, but in a comment to the article, it denied any wrongdoing.
OpenAI spokeswoman Hannah Wong told The Post that OpenAI's “hacker policy protects employees' right to disclose protected information,” adding that the company believes “robust debate about this technology is necessary and has made necessary changes to our initial process to eliminate undisclosed contracts.”
Cointelegraph reached out to OpenAI for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
OpenAI is currently facing several lawsuits for allegedly “scraping” copyrighted material to train its chatGPT system, but the company is continuing its partnership as it moves to its next AI model, called “Strawberry.”
Related: OpenAI partners with lab that created atomic bomb, but for bioscience
