An OpenAI researcher has resigned, saying she is deeply worried about the company’s decision to test advertising on ChatGPT.
OpenAI says the ads will be clearly labelled, placed at the bottom of answers and will not influence the chatbot’s responses.
Zoe Hitzig believes the first version of ads will likely follow those rules. However, she fears that could change over time.
OpenAI researcher Zoe Hitzig, who spent two years at OpenAI helping shape how its AI systems were built, priced and governed, has resigned from the company, citing concerns over ChatGPT ads. Hitzig announced her departure in a guest essay in The New York Times. She said she once believed she could help the company ‘get ahead of the problems’ artificial intelligence might create. But this week, she wrote, confirmed her growing belief that OpenAI has ‘stopped asking the questions I’d joined to help answer.’
SurveyOpenAI began testing ads inside ChatGPT this week. The company says the ads will be clearly labelled, placed at the bottom of answers and will not influence the chatbot’s responses. Hitzig said she believes the first version of ads will likely follow those rules. However, she fears that could change over time.
‘I don’t believe ads are immoral or unethical,’ she wrote, noting that AI systems are expensive to run and need revenue. Her concern is about incentives. She warned that building an ad-based business model could pressure the company to slowly weaken its own principles to increase engagement and profits.
For years, users have shared highly personal information with ChatGPT, from medical fears to relationship problems and religious beliefs. Hitzig described this as ‘an archive of human candor that has no precedent.’ She warned that advertising built on such sensitive data could create ‘a potential for manipulating users in ways we don’t have the tools to understand.’
She pointed to the history of social media platforms that promised strong privacy protections but later changed policies under pressure from advertising goals. ‘In its early years, Facebook promised that users would control their data and be able to vote on policy changes. Those commitments eroded. The company eliminated holding public votes on policy,’ she wrote.
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Ayushi Jain
Ayushi works as Chief Copy Editor at Digit, covering everything from breaking tech news to in-depth smartphone reviews. Prior to Digit, she was part of the editorial team at IANS. View Full Profile
