ChatGPT Ads Shift: Top Safety Researchers Walk Out of OpenAI
OpenAI faces a major crisis this week as several key safety researchers resign from the company.
Mrinank Sharma, a researcher who worked on AI risks related to bioterrorism, posted on X that he left because he “repeatedly saw how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions.”
He warned that “the world is in peril” as AI technology advances faster than humans can control it.
Days later, Zoe Hitzig, another AI safety researcher, revealed she quit OpenAI because the company decided to start showing advertisements inside ChatGPT.
She wrote in a New York Times essay that people share their deepest fears, medical problems, and personal beliefs with AI chatbots. Adding ads to such a personal space raises serious privacy and trust concerns.
Also read about: OpenAI Tests ChatGPT Ads Amid $5B+ Annual Losses
ChatGPT Ads Could Reshape the Digital Ad Industry
OpenAI now shows sponsored results to free and Go tier ChatGPT users. This move puts the company directly into competition with Google and Meta in the $600 billion digital advertising market.
A recent study shows that 37% of consumers already prefer AI chatbots over Google for product research.
Yoshua Bengio, a leading AI scientist and chair of the 2026 International AI Safety Report, told Al Jazeera that nobody expected people to form such deep emotional connections with AI systems.
He pointed out that children and adolescents face new psychological risks from AI interactions that were completely off the radar just one year ago. The AI safety debate now sits at the center of the tech industry's biggest decisions.
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