Computerworld.com reported that “Over the past couple of weeks, a stream of senior researchers and safety leads from OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and others have resigned in public, and there’s nothing quiet or vanilla about it.” The February 17, 2026 article entitled ” Why are AI leaders fleeing?” (https://www.computerworld.com/article/4133137/why-are-ai-leaders-fleeing.html) included these comments:
Normally, when big-name talent leaves Silicon Valley giants, the PR language is vanilla: they’re headed for a “new chapter” or “grateful for the journey” — or maybe there’s some vague hints about a stealth startup. In the world of AI, though, recent exits read more like whistleblower warnings.
Take, for example, OpenAI researcher Zoë Hitzig. She chose not to quietly flip her LinkedIn profile but to announce her resignation in a New York Times guest essay entitled, “OpenAI Is Making the Mistakes Facebook Made. I Quit.”
Who resigns that way — in the Times?
What ticked her off was OpenAI’s decision to start testing ads inside ChatGPT. Ironically, in 2024 Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, had said, “I hate ads,” arguing that “ads plus AI” … are “uniquely unsettling” because people are forced to figure out who is paying to influence them with the answers. But, hey, when even OpenAI’s internal bean counters expect the company to lose $14 billion in 2026 alone, Altman managed to get over his qualms.
Not so, Hitzig. She wrote, “People tell chatbots about their medical fears, their relationship problems, their beliefs about God and the afterlife. Advertising built on that archive creates a potential for manipulating users in ways we don’t have the tools to understand, let alone prevent.” (She’s right, of course.)
But, I’m sorry, that’s naive. Facebook didn’t make a mistake. It made billions of dollars by exploiting people who shared things online with families and friends. It’s been a truism in internet business models since the late 2000s that, “If you’re not paying for the service, you are the product.”
Interesting!
First published at https://www.vogelitlaw.com/blog/any-idea-what-ai-leaders-are-leaving