HackerOne's veterans say the platform trains AI on report data while executives claim "zero training on researcher data."

Joel Margolis, a bug bounty hunter since 2017, published a 272-point post arguing HackerOne traded its hacker-centric identity after raising $160M between 2014 and 2022 and replacing Marten Mickos with Kara Sprague in late 2024. His sharpest claim: all reports route through "Hai," an AI system whose agents are shaped by contextual report data, which makes the executive line a semantic dodge because "past reports change future automated behavior." It lands against a documented triage collapse; 76% YoY submission jump through March 2026 with the genuine-vulnerability rate stuck near 25%, curl ending its bounty in January over AI slop, GitHub halving public payouts July 27.