OpenAI's Head of Ethics Chloé Bakalar Departs After Less Than a Year
Bakalar, OpenAI's only dedicated ethicist, left last month with no replacement named, following other exits from safety and research teams.
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Summary, timeline and people extracted by Claude from 4 items across 4 sources · 1h ago. Quotes are verbatim.
Chloé Bakalar, OpenAI's Head of Ethics, left the company last month after less than a year in the role, a departure first reported by the Financial Times. She was reportedly the company's only dedicated ethicist and has not been replaced, adding to a string of recent exits from OpenAI's safety and research teams including Johannes Heidecke and Joshua Achiam.
- Chloé Bakalar, OpenAI's Head of Ethics and its only dedicated ethicist, departed last month after less than a year in the role, with no replacement named.
- Her exit follows other recent departures from OpenAI's safety and research functions, including Head of Safety Systems Johannes Heidecke and Chief Futurist Joshua Achiam.
- OpenAI has restructured its safety, product and research teams repeatedly since ChatGPT's 2022 launch as the company scaled rapidly.
- OpenAI says ethical considerations are embedded across multiple research teams rather than owned by a single person or team.
How it unfolded
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AI Magazine's report, citing the FT and Business Insider, notes Bakalar was OpenAI's only dedicated ethicist with no replacement, and situates her exit alongside other recent departures from safety and research teams.
“We're thankful for Chloé's contributions. 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.”
OpenAI spokesperson · Hacker News ↗ -
American Bazaar publishes a report on Bakalar's exit, describing it as coming after a brief tenure.
- 6 weeks quiet
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Event Bakalar leaves OpenAI
Her departure occurred last month relative to the article's publication, less than a year after she joined the company.
- 17 weeks quiet
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In an interview months before her departure, she reflected on how unprepared AI's creators were for its explosive growth and argued against single-company control over global AI decisions.
“The people at the forefront of it had no idea it was going to blow up the way it did.”
Chloé Bakalar · Hacker News ↗ - 30 weeks quiet
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She started the role after previously serving as Chief Ethicist at Meta from November 2021 to August 2025.
What people are saying verbatim
“The people at the forefront of it had no idea it was going to blow up the way it did.”
Chloé Bakalar, Former OpenAI Head of Ethics · IE Insights (via AI Magazine) ↗ · Feb 28
“Everybody needs to be part of the conversations; it shouldn't simply be one person who has a multi-billion-dollar company that gets to dictate that this is what's right for all people, especially when we are talking about global technologies that are operating all over the world, impacting billions of people.”
Chloé Bakalar, Former OpenAI Head of Ethics · IE Insights (via AI Magazine) ↗
“We're thankful for Chloé's contributions. 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.”
OpenAI spokesperson, Company spokesperson · Financial Times (via AI Magazine) ↗
“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 OpenAI Head of Ethics · IE Insights (via AI Magazine) ↗
“What does it mean to be a human? What does it mean to have responsibilities to others? What kinds of responsibilities do we have for the things that we create?”
Chloé Bakalar, Former OpenAI Head of Ethics · IE Insights (via AI Magazine) ↗