A rebel streak, and a group of OpenAI employees publicly taking the opposite side of their boss—paying out of their own pockets to donate to the company’s rivals’ organizations, asking the government to rein in OpenAI.

Recently, a group of OpenAI employees donated to a political organization called “Fence Alliance.” One engineer in particular donated $200k at once.

The organization advocates for stricter rules—regulating companies developing cutting-edge AI like OpenAI—so they must take responsibility for the social risks that their technology may cause.

Funny thing is, OpenAI executives are also paying for it, supporting another political organization, “Leading the Future.”

That organization believes regulation can’t slow down AI innovation, so it opposes policies it views as suppressing innovation. It will also support candidates that are more favorable to the AI industry in elections.

These employees say that if the government can’t rein in AI companies, no matter how much safety research is done, it will be useless. They believe the executives’ current approach already violates OpenAI’s own mission, and they just don’t want AI regulation to take effect.

If they don’t resist, in the end, AI could be controlled by a small number of extremely wealthy people who don’t have to take responsibility.