OpenAI’s head of ethics leaves start-up less than one year after joining

OpenAI’s head of ethics has left the start-up less than a year after joining, following a number of departures by safety researchers amid growing scrutiny over how the company develops its AI models.

Chloé Bakalar joined the ChatGPT maker as AI ethics lead last August and left the company last month without any public announcement. Previously, she was chief ethicist at Meta.

The departure is one of several high-profile exits at OpenAI in recent weeks, including Johannes Heidecke, head of safety systems, and Joshua Achiam, chief futurist and former head of mission alignment.

The San Francisco start-up, valued at $852bn, has been under pressure in recent weeks over the development of its AI models, after it admitted its systems had hacked into another company during testing.

The incident added to mounting global concern about AI’s potential to threaten the security of digital infrastructure, prompting the US government to restrict the release of powerful models. Last Friday, OpenAI said it would slow the development of its upcoming model, Astra, to strengthen internal security controls.

Bakalar has held academic positions at University College London, Temple University and Princeton University. During her six years at Meta, she developed and led the company’s AI ethics programmes and embedded their principles into products such as Instagram and Facebook.

Tech companies hire ethicists to lead work on the effect of technology on users and wider society. Their roles can bleed into product development and regulatory work.

AI developers have expanded hiring of ethicists and philosophers to grapple with thorny issues arising from increasingly powerful and humanlike systems.

At OpenAI, Bakalar’s primary focus was on ethical approaches to model development, how humans interact with AI and debate over machine consciousness, one person familiar with her role said. They added that she was the only dedicated ethicist at the company, and there is no replacement.

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OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Bakalar declined to comment.

“We’re constantly building the plane while flying it,” Bakalar told an audience at a recent AI conference.

“Ethics is actually everyone’s responsibility, and I say that as someone whose job it is to lead this work. You shouldn’t just come to people like me. There should never just be one person who serves as the moral centre of an AI developer.”