The dangers of speaking out about AI were highlighted in an open letter last year (June 4, 2024) by a handful of current and former employees from OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic. Whistleblower protections are out of date and patchwork.  

“I fear it will take a catastrophe to drive both greater oversight and stronger whistleblower protections for tech-sector whistleblowers,” said Dana Gold, senior counsel and director of advocacy and strategy at the Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower protection and advocacy organization. “We should be very grateful to the AI employees who are speaking out now to prevent one, and we should all decry any reprisal they suffer,” she said.

The authors of the open letter asked for AI companies to commit  to specific principles protecting whistleblowers. 

Thibodeau, P. (2024, June 6). Catastrophic AI risks highlight need for whistleblower laws. TechTarget.