There Was Just an Unusually Unsettling Pentagon-Related Resignation at OpenAI

It probably will not shock you to learn that someone just resigned from OpenAI and trumpeted their reasons far and wide on social media. You might not have even heard of Caitlin Kalinowski before this moment, and her online statement, which reads in part “I have deep respect for Sam and the team, and I’m proud of what we built together,” does not, in and of itself, make for riveting reading material.

Amid the company’s high-profile deal with the Pentagon that CEO Sam Altman acknowledged “looked opportunistic and sloppy,” it should come as no surprise that some employees are turned off. OpenAI’s rival, Anthropic, seems to be taking a victory lap, raking in record revenue after having successfully marketed itself as the AI company that wants to protect the world from mass surveillance and autonomous killer robots. 

I mention all this because of Kalinowski’s specific role: she was the leader of the company’s robotics division.

I resigned from OpenAI. I care deeply about the Robotics team and the work we built together. This wasn’t an easy call. AI has an important role in national security. But surveillance of Americans without judicial oversight and lethal autonomy without human authorization are…

— Caitlin Kalinowski (@kalinowski007) March 7, 2026

So when Kalinowski says in her statement that “lethal autonomy without human authorization” deserved more deliberation than it got, she at least speaks with some knowledge of what kinds of AI-powered robots OpenAI has in mind.

According to a Wired report from last year, anonymous leakers revealed that OpenAI had been seeking to hire humanoid robot specialists, or at least specialists in robots with partially human-inspired designs. It was also working toward creating AI algorithms that can “make sense of the physical world” and seeking to “empower robots to navigate and perform tasks.”

Robotics-related job ads on the OpenAI website tend to begin with the line “Our Robotics team is focused on unlocking general-purpose robotics and pushing towards AGI-level intelligence in dynamic, real-world settings.” 

That’s not to say any of OpenAI’s goals in robotics were accomplished, but when the person in charge of the most Terminator-like technology at your company leaves, and strongly implies that it’s because leadership was a little too cozy with a guy who calls himself the Secretary of War, that might reasonably be considered a moment for those in the C-suite to do some soul-searching.