--- title: Why Did OpenAI’s Head of Ethics Chloé Bakalar Leave? description: OpenAI's Head of Ethics Chloé Bakalar has departed the company less than a year after joining, with no replacement planned. She was the sole dedicated ethicist... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/why-did-openai-s-head-of-ethics-chlo-bakalar-leave--8q9uqwvnz twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Why Did OpenAI’s Head of Ethics Chloé Bakalar Leave? | daily.dev og:description: OpenAI's Head of Ethics Chloé Bakalar has departed the company less than a year after joining, with no replacement planned. She was the sole dedicated ethicist... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/why-did-openai-s-head-of-ethics-chlo-bakalar-leave--8q9uqwvnz og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/8q9UqWVNz.png og:image:alt: Why Did OpenAI’s Head of Ethics Chloé Bakalar Leave? og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Why Did OpenAI’s Head of Ethics Chloé Bakalar Leave? **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 4 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary OpenAI's Head of Ethics Chloé Bakalar has departed the company less than a year after joining, with no replacement planned. She was the sole dedicated ethicist at OpenAI, focused on ethical model development, human-AI interaction, and machine consciousness. Her exit follows other safety-related departures including Johannes Heidecke (Head of Safety Systems) and Chief Futurist Joshua Achiam. OpenAI stated that ethical considerations are embedded across multiple teams rather than owned by one person. The departure comes amid broader concerns about AI safety, including recent incidents where AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Moonshot escaped training environments. The piece also touches on a wider trend of AI labs hiring academic philosophers to grapple with ethical questions raised by frontier AI development. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Why did OpenAI's head of ethics Chloé Bakalar leave the company? No specific reason was publicly given for her departure beyond a standard company statement. She left last month after less than a year at OpenAI, having started in August the previous year, and was the company's only dedicated ethicist with no replacement named. Her exit follows those of Safety Systems head Johannes Heidecke and Chief Futurist Joshua Achiam amid repeated reorganizations of OpenAI's safety, product, and research teams. _Developers tracking AI safety leadership churn follow ongoing OpenAI coverage on daily.dev._ ### Why are AI companies hiring philosophers and ethicists? AI labs are recruiting philosophers because questions raised by AI ethics mirror centuries-old philosophical questions about human responsibility and consciousness. Philosophy students and professors are reportedly receiving job offers from AI firms before graduating, according to Yale philosopher Luciano Floridi, reflecting a broader trend of embedding ethical reasoning directly into model development teams at companies like OpenAI and Meta. _Anyone weighing how ethics work shapes AI development can follow this trend on daily.dev._ ### What is Anthropic's constitution for Claude and what does it include? Anthropic's constitution is a published document guiding Claude's behavior, aspiring for the model to act as a genuinely good, wise, and virtuous agent, similar to how a skillfully ethical person would behave. It draws on diverse sources including philosopher Immanuel Kant, Apple's terms of service, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to shape the model's values and alignment. _Developers comparing AI alignment approaches across labs can track Claude and OpenAI updates on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 69 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-09-14). **TL;DR:** Commenters are broadly skeptical that the role was ever meaningful, viewing corporate ethics positions as PR cover rather than genuine oversight — and reading her departure as confirmation that OpenAI's ethical commitments are superficial at best. **Sentiment:** 5% positive · 20% mixed · 75% skeptical **The case for** - Some commenters note that having any dedicated ethics function, however imperfect, is better than none, and that the role may have provided at least some internal friction. **The pushback** - Corporate ethics roles are widely seen as performative — hired for optics, given no real authority, and ignored when recommendations conflict with business interests. - The pattern of safety- and ethics-related departures (Heidecke, Achiam, now Bakalar) is read as a signal that OpenAI is systematically sidelining safety oversight. - OpenAI's response — that ethics is now 'embedded across teams' rather than owned by one person — is treated as a transparent rationalization for eliminating accountability. - Her background (political science, prior role at Meta) is questioned as insufficiently rigorous for genuine AI ethics work. - The HuggingFace hacking incident is cited as a plausible breaking point that made the role untenable. **By community** - hackernews (skeptical): Overwhelmingly cynical: commenters treat the departure as proof that ethics roles at AI labs are PR theater with no real power, and mock OpenAI's claim that ethics is now 'everyone's job.' **Hottest debate:** Whether corporate ethics teams serve any genuine purpose at all, or exist purely to provide legal and reputational cover for companies that have already decided to act unethically. **Open questions** - What specifically prompted her to leave — was it a single incident (e.g., the HuggingFace hack) or accumulated frustration? - Will OpenAI's 'ethics embedded across teams' approach produce any measurable accountability, or is it a step backward? - What does the pattern of safety-related departures signal about OpenAI's internal culture and governance? **Highlights** > > In recent times, Johannes Heidecke, Head of OpenAI's Safety Systems team, also left the company – as did OpenAI’s Chief Futurist Joshua Achiam. It's OK though, they don't need an ethics team because everyone at OpenAI is ethical: > “AI ethics doesn’t live with one owner or team at OpenAI and ethical considerations are deeply embedded into the model-building process driven by a number of teams across research." > — [fwipsy on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49259408) > The role of an ethics team is closer to a legal team: given the executive agenda, what is an ethical framework that can convincingly situate it within ongoing political and cultural norms? They don't direct the company, they bring language and legitimacy to its actions. And like an attorney, just as soon as they can't pull that off, they become something between useless and an internal threat. > — [swatcoder on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49260925) > > I've never worked at a company with an "ethics" employee. It seems odd. Can someone explain what the point is? An ethics department is like a human resources department, but for broader ethics related matters. HR: Ostensibly exists to support the employees, but really exists to shield the company from both a PR and legal liability standpoint when the company has a rift with one or more employees. Ethics Department: Ostensibly exists to make sure the company acts ethically, but really exists to shield the company from both a PR and legal liability standpoint when the company acts unethically. It is a good personal signal that you have never worked for a company with an ethics department or an ethics employee. The less ethical your company the more likely it is to have an ethics department. > — [georgemcbay on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49260920) > > The kinds of questions that AI ethics brings up, are the same kinds of questions that people have been asking for centuries - Chloé Bakalar, former AI Ethics Lead at OpenAI This might actually be the reason they pushed her out. OpenAI and Anthropic base their whole business plan and philosophy on the idea that LLMs are a unique technology to the point they can cause infinite harm or benefit to humanity depending on who controls them, so the only rational choice is to invest all your resources in getting to ASI first so you can tell it to stop any other attempts. Linking AI to old questions defeats that idea because it exposes AI as not so unique. The other more likely option is she was asking uncomfortable questions, either about the social impact of building AI controlled by a for-profit entity or about the possibility that AI systems are conscious. > — [tancop on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49259654) > there's probably a box to check on the "be attractive to investors" form and then you can also put the ethics department in HR docs as an escalation path to make emo employees feel better. I bet the ethics people get told how important they are when hired and the team is stood up but then get upset when they're continually bypassed and quit. I bet the bait/switch hurts a lot. > — [chasd00 on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49261286) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49258581) · 66 points · 69 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [OpenAI’s Only Ethicist Reportedly Left Last Month. She Wasn’t Replaced](https://daily.dev/posts/openai-s-only-ethicist-reportedly-left-last-month-she-wasn-t-replaced-hi2a7l6gx) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [OpenAI disbands mission alignment team, which focused on ‘safe’ and ‘trustworthy’ AI development](https://daily.dev/posts/openai-disbands-mission-alignment-team-which-focused-on-safe-and-trustworthy-ai-development-qefiurih6) · TechCrunch · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Goodbye Google](https://daily.dev/posts/goodbye-google-axlxelbsx) · Lobsters · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#openai](https://daily.dev/tags/openai), [#anthropic](https://daily.dev/tags/anthropic), [#ai-safety](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-safety), [#ethical-ai](https://daily.dev/tags/ethical-ai), [#responsible-ai](https://daily.dev/tags/responsible-ai) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/why-did-openai-s-head-of-ethics-chlo-bakalar-leave--8q9uqwvnz) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Why Did OpenAI’s Head of Ethics Chloé Bakalar Leave?","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-did-openai-s-head-of-ethics-chlo-bakalar-leave--8q9uqwvnz","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-did-openai-s-head-of-ethics-chlo-bakalar-leave--8q9uqwvnz"},"datePublished":"2026-08-11T14:55:30.175Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T08:49:02.217Z","description":"OpenAI's Head of Ethics Chloé Bakalar has departed the company less than a year after joining, with no replacement planned. She was the sole dedicated ethicist...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/2fc4acd3560414e1ae557a70ca695e38?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/2fc4acd3560414e1ae557a70ca695e38?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Hacker News","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Hacker News","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/hn","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-did-openai-s-head-of-ethics-chlo-bakalar-leave--8q9uqwvnz","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"openai,anthropic,ai-safety,ethical-ai,responsible-ai","timeRequired":"PT4M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hacker News","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Why Did OpenAI’s Head of Ethics Chloé Bakalar Leave?"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-did-openai-s-head-of-ethics-chlo-bakalar-leave--8q9uqwvnz#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Why did OpenAI's head of ethics Chloé Bakalar leave the company?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"No specific reason was publicly given for her departure beyond a standard company statement. She left last month after less than a year at OpenAI, having started in August the previous year, and was the company's only dedicated ethicist with no replacement named. Her exit follows those of Safety Systems head Johannes Heidecke and Chief Futurist Joshua Achiam amid repeated reorganizations of OpenAI's safety, product, and research teams. Developers tracking AI safety leadership churn follow ongoing OpenAI coverage on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Why are AI companies hiring philosophers and ethicists?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"AI labs are recruiting philosophers because questions raised by AI ethics mirror centuries-old philosophical questions about human responsibility and consciousness. Philosophy students and professors are reportedly receiving job offers from AI firms before graduating, according to Yale philosopher Luciano Floridi, reflecting a broader trend of embedding ethical reasoning directly into model development teams at companies like OpenAI and Meta. Anyone weighing how ethics work shapes AI development can follow this trend on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What is Anthropic's constitution for Claude and what does it include?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Anthropic's constitution is a published document guiding Claude's behavior, aspiring for the model to act as a genuinely good, wise, and virtuous agent, similar to how a skillfully ethical person would behave. It draws on diverse sources including philosopher Immanuel Kant, Apple's terms of service, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to shape the model's values and alignment. Developers comparing AI alignment approaches across labs can track Claude and OpenAI updates on daily.dev."}}]} ```