OpenAI Employees Pool Rp 3.8 Billion to Challenge Their Boss

A number of OpenAI employees have pooled US$215,000 (Rp3.8 billion) and donated it to a political action committee (super PAC) called ‘Guardrails Alliance’ to push for tighter regulation of leading AI laboratories. This move runs counter to OpenAI’s own efforts to continuously develop super-advanced AI amid increasingly fierce competition, and the tech giant’s historically defiant stance against strict regulation. Guardrails Alliance was launched last month with initial funding of US$5 million (Rp90 billion). The alliance positions itself as a populist movement backed by tech sector workers, labour unions, and various other groups. The organisation aims to act as a counterweight to ‘Leading the Future’, a pro-industry AI super PAC funded with over US$100 million (Rp1.8 trillion) from tech leaders, including OpenAI President and co-founder Greg Brockman. According to information obtained by Wired, seven current OpenAI employees and one former employee have donated to Guardrails Alliance. One of the largest donations came from Juan Felipe Cerón Uribe, an OpenAI research engineer, who contributed US$200,000 (Rp3.6 billion). Cerón Uribe stated that he had spent the last four years working on the company’s strategy to mitigate potential societal harms from AI. He expressed concern that this research would be futile without oversight mechanisms holding private companies accountable, and said his decision to donate was easy given that tech billionaires like Brockman are funding super PACs to keep AI unregulated. The contributions represent a small fraction of Guardrails Alliance’s US$15 million fundraising target for this election cycle, and are dwarfed by the US$50 million commitment Brockman and his wife made to Leading the Future. Nevertheless, the donations underscore rising tensions within OpenAI regarding its efforts to shape AI policy.