Caitlin Kalinowski, OpenAI’s top robotics executive, has stepped down, citing ethical concerns over the company’s recent Pentagon contract.

The deal allows OpenAI’s AI technology to be used for military operations and could potentially be applied to domestic surveillance.

Kalinowski said her resignation was “about principle, not people,” emphasizing that the speed of the deal’s rollout left too little oversight. She warned that “surveillance of Americans without judicial oversight and lethal autonomy without human authorization” were ethical lines that deserved more scrutiny.

The resignation follows Anthropic’s refusal to allow unrestricted military use of its Claude AI models, which sparked criticism from US officials. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded by pledging changes to prevent domestic surveillance of US citizens using their AI systems.

Formerly a Meta executive developing augmented reality technology, Kalinowski stressed that her main concern was governance and proper safeguards, not personal conflicts.

“This isn’t about people, it’s about making sure AI is handled responsibly,” she said in a follow-up post.