A senior robotics executive at OpenAI, Caitlin Kalinowski, has resigned from the company over concerns surrounding its recent defence contract with the United States Department of Defense.
Kalinowski announced her resignation on Saturday, citing ethical concerns about the potential use of the company’s artificial intelligence technology for warfare and domestic surveillance.
The company behind ChatGPT secured a defence contract with the Pentagon last month. The deal came shortly after rival AI firm Anthropic reportedly declined to approve unconditional military use of its AI systems.
Following criticism of the agreement, OpenAI’s Chief Executive Officer, Sam Altman, said the company would revise the contract to limit how its AI models could be used.
In a post on X, Altman explained that the updated terms would ensure the company’s technology is not used for “domestic surveillance of US persons and nationals.”
Kalinowski, however, said her decision to step down was based on broader governance and ethical concerns surrounding the deal.
She noted that issues such as surveillance of American citizens without judicial oversight and the development of lethal autonomous systems without human authorization should have undergone deeper deliberation before any agreement was announced.
“I care deeply about the Robotics team and the work we built together,” she wrote in a statement on X, adding that the matter was about principle rather than personal disagreements.
“This was about principle, not people,” Kalinowski stated.
In a follow-up post, she emphasized that her primary concern was the speed at which the defence agreement was announced.
According to her, the deal was made public before sufficient safeguards and governance structures had been clearly defined.
“To be clear, my issue is that the announcement was rushed without the guardrails defined,” she wrote.
“It’s a governance concern first and foremost. These are too important for deals or announcements to be rushed.”
The controversy comes amid growing global debate over the role of artificial intelligence in military operations and surveillance.
Anthropic’s earlier refusal to authorize the use of its Claude AI models for unrestricted military purposes had also drawn criticism from some U.S. officials.
Before joining OpenAI, Kalinowski previously worked at Meta Platforms, where she contributed to the development of augmented reality glasses and other advanced hardware technologies.
