Ryan Beiermeister, who served as OpenAI’s vice president of product policy, was fired in January. According to a Wall Street Journal report, her termination followed an accusation of sexual discrimination from a male colleague. Beiermeister has denied the allegation, stating that any claim she discriminated against anyone is absolutely false.
The Journal’s report indicates that Beiermeister’s firing came after she expressed criticism of a planned ChatGPT feature known as “adult mode.” This new mode would introduce erotica into the chatbot user experience. Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of Applications, has told reporters the feature is planned to launch in the first quarter of this year.
Beiermeister and others at the company reportedly raised concerns about how the adult feature could potentially impact certain users. OpenAI stated that Beiermeister, who was fired following a leave of absence, made valuable contributions during her time at the company. The company also said her departure was not related to any issue she raised while working there.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Beiermeister previously worked for four years on Meta’s product team and spent more than seven years working for Palantir. TechCrunch reached out to OpenAI for comment and attempted to contact an email associated with Beiermeister, but neither had responded at the time of their publication.