TechFlow reports that, according to Forbes, Caitlin Kalinowski, Head of Hardware and Robotics Engineering at OpenAI, announced her resignation on X on Saturday, March 8, stating that her decision was “a matter of principle.” Kalinowski emphasized AI’s critical value to national security but stressed that “monitoring U.S. citizens without judicial oversight, and deploying lethal autonomous actions without human authorization—these red lines should have received far more careful deliberation than they actually did,” adding that the related agreement was “rushed into announcement without clearly defined safety guardrails.”
This week, OpenAI announced a partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), under which its technology will support military applications including cybersecurity, intelligence analysis, and logistics. The agreement has drawn criticism both internally at OpenAI and across the broader AI research community; ChatGPT’s mobile app uninstallations surged by 295% the day after the agreement was announced. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman subsequently acknowledged the “rushed” nature of the agreement’s rollout and revised its terms to explicitly state that the ChatGPT system “must not be intentionally used to monitor U.S. citizens.” Meanwhile, Anthropic’s Claude app saw downloads increase approximately 55% week-over-week for the period ending March 2.
Previously, the U.S. Department of Defense had partnered with Anthropic, but the Trump administration terminated that contract after Anthropic refused to permit the military to use its AI for autonomous weapons or mass surveillance, opting instead to deepen its collaboration with OpenAI.
