OpenAI Robotics Chief Quits

Caitlin Kalinowski, a Stanford-educated mechanical engineer, had a notable career at Apple, where she was a technical lead for the Mac Pro and MacBook Air, and at Meta, where she led hardware development for VR and AR products like the Meta Quest 2 and Oculus Rift. She joined OpenAI in November 2024 to head their robotics and consumer hardware initiatives. Kalinowski's resignation was a matter of principle, centered on what she described as a lack of deliberation regarding "surveillance of Americans without judicial oversight and lethal autonomy without human authorization." She expressed that these issues were too significant for deals or announcements to be rushed and that her departure was a governance concern. The controversy began after OpenAI's competitor, Anthropic, was blacklisted by the U.S. government. Anthropic had refused a Department of Defense directive to remove its "red lines" against using its AI for mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. Consequently, on February 27, 2026, President Trump ordered all federal agencies to cease using Anthropic's technology, and the Pentagon labeled the company a "supply chain risk." Just hours after Anthropic's blacklisting, OpenAI announced its own agreement with the Department of Defense. This deal, with a ceiling of $200 million, is intended to prototype advanced AI systems for military and organizational use, with a completion date of July 2026. In response to the backlash, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted the deal's announcement looked "opportunistic and sloppy" and stated the contract was amended to explicitly bar the technology from being used for domestic mass surveillance. Despite this, the deal sparked criticism from some OpenAI employees and a petition signed by nearly 900 current and former employees of both OpenAI and Google in support of Anthropic's stance.