OpenAI is facing internal turmoil as employees allege the company has grown reluctant to publish research highlighting AI's potential negative economic impacts. At least two researchers have left the economic research team in recent months, with one departing staffer claiming the team faces growing tension between rigorous analysis and functioning as a "de facto advocacy arm" for the AI giant.
The departure of Tom Cunningham from OpenAI's economic research team has exposed a brewing conflict at the heart of the AI industry's most influential company. According to four sources familiar with the matter who spoke to WIRED, Cunningham left in September after concluding it had become difficult to publish high-quality research that didn't align with the company's commercial interests.
In his internal parting message, Cunningham wrote that the team faced mounting pressure between conducting rigorous analysis and functioning as what he called a "de facto advocacy arm" for OpenAI. The allegation strikes at the core of how AI companies balance scientific integrity with business imperatives as they reshape the global economy.
Chief strategy officer Jason Kwon quickly responded with an internal memo defending the company's approach. "Rather, because we are not just a research institution, but also an actor in the world (the leading actor in fact) that puts the subject of inquiry (AI) into the world, we are expected to take agency for the outcomes," Kwon wrote on Slack, according to documents obtained by WIRED.
The tension reflects OpenAI's evolution from research lab to commercial powerhouse with multibillion-dollar partnerships spanning corporations and governments. Since 2016, the company has regularly published research on AI's labor impact, including the widely cited 2023 paper "GPTs Are GPTs" that examined automation vulnerability across sectors.
But sources tell WIRED that dynamic has shifted over the past year. Two insiders claim the company has grown more reluctant to release work highlighting economic downsides like job displacement, instead favoring studies that cast AI in a positive light. An outside economist who previously collaborated with OpenAI echoed these concerns, speaking anonymously about the company's increasingly favorable research filter.
The timing coincides with OpenAI's deepening political entanglements. This week, the company published a report surveying enterprise users who claim its AI products save them 40 to 60 minutes daily - precisely the kind of upbeat findings that critics say now dominate the research pipeline.
