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Hardware executive Caitlin Kalinowski announced today that in response to OpenAI\u2019s controversial agreement with the Department of Defense<\/a>, she\u2019s resigned from her role leading the company\u2019s robotics team.<\/p>\n \u201cThis wasn\u2019t an easy call,\u201d Kalinowski said in a social media post<\/a>. \u201cAI has an important role in national security. But surveillance of Americans without judicial oversight and lethal autonomy without human authorization are lines that deserved more deliberation than they got.\u201d<\/p>\n Kalinowski, who previously led the team building augmented reality glasses at Meta, joined OpenAI in November 2024<\/a>. In her announcement today, she emphasized that the decision was \u201cabout principle, not people\u201d and said she has \u201cdeep respect\u201d for CEO Sam Altman and the OpenAI team.<\/p>\n In a follow-up post on X<\/a>, Kalinowski added, \u201cTo be clear, my issue is that the announcement was rushed without the guardrails defined. It\u2019s a governance concern first and foremost. These are too important for deals or announcements to be rushed.\u201d<\/p>\n An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed Kalinowski\u2019s departure to TechCrunch.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe our agreement with the Pentagon creates a workable path for responsible national security uses of AI while making clear our red lines: no domestic surveillance and no autonomous weapons,\u201d the company said in a statement. \u201cWe recognize that people have strong views about these issues and we will continue to engage in discussion with employees, government, civil society and communities around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n OpenAI\u2019s agreement with the Pentagon was announced just over a week ago, after discussions between the Pentagon and Anthropic fell through<\/a> as the AI company tried to negotiate for safeguards preventing its technology from being used in mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. The Pentagon subsequently designated Anthropic a supply-chain risk<\/a>. (Anthropic said it will fight the designation in court<\/a>; in the meantime, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon said they will continue to make Anthropic\u2019s Claude available to non-defense customers<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco, CA<\/span> Then, OpenAI quickly announced a agreement of its own<\/a> allowing its technology to be used in classified environments. As executives attempted to explain the deal on social media, the company described it<\/a> as taking \u201ca more expansive, multi-layered approach\u201d that relies not just on contract language, but also technical safeguards, to protect red lines similar to Anthropic\u2019s.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, the controversy appears to have damaged OpenAI\u2019s reputation among some consumers, with ChatGPT uninstalls surging 295%<\/a> and Claude climbing to the top of the App Store charts<\/a>. As of Saturday afternoon, Claude and ChatGPT remain the U.S. App Store\u2019s number one and number two free apps, respectively.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n