OpenAI’s top robotics executive, Caitlin Kalinowski, announced on Saturday that she had resigned from the artificial intelligence company.

Her resignation stemmed from concerns over OpenAI’s recent defense contract with the Pentagon, which allows deployment of its technology for military purposes, including potential war applications and domestic surveillance.

The company behind ChatGPT secured the defense contract with the Pentagon last month.

This occurred hours after rival Anthropic refused to agree to unconditional military use of its technology.

OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman later posted to X, saying the startup would be modifying a contract so its models would not be used for “domestic surveillance of US persons and nationals,” after criticism that it was giving too much power to military officials without oversight.

Kalinowski said she cared deeply about “the Robotics team and the work we built together,” but that “surveillance of Americans without judicial oversight and lethal autonomy without human authorisation are lines that deserved more deliberation than they got.”

“This was about principle, not people,” she wrote in a post on X.

In a follow-up post, Kalinowski wrote that she took issue with the haste of OpenAI’s Pentagon deal.

“To be clear, my issue is that the announcement was rushed without the guardrails defined,” she wrote.

“It’s a governance concern first and foremost. These are too important for deals or announcements to be rushed.”

Anthropic’s refusal to authorise use of its Claude AI models had prompted backlash from US officials.

Kalinowski previously worked at Meta, where she developed their augmented reality glasses.