OpenAI's sole in-house ethicist has departed the company without a public announcement or a named successor, according to a report from the Financial Times, raising fresh questions about how the AI giant is managing safety and ethical oversight as it races to expand.
A Quiet Departure
Chloé Bakalar, who joined OpenAI from Meta last August, left the company in July, the Financial Times reported. Her exit came without any formal statement from the company, and no replacement has been named to fill the role she occupied as OpenAI's only dedicated ethicist.
Bakalar's arrival had been seen as part of OpenAI's effort to bolster its internal thinking around the moral and societal implications of increasingly powerful AI systems. Her departure leaves a notable gap in the company's structure at a moment when scrutiny of AI ethics is intensifying across the industry.
An organization racing to build superintelligence has quietly lost the one person tasked with asking whether it should.
Part of a Broader Exodus
Bakalar's exit is not an isolated case. The report noted that her departure is one of several from OpenAI's safety-related ranks in recent weeks, adding to a pattern of high-profile turnover among staff focused on responsible development.
The company has faced repeated waves of departures from employees working on alignment, policy, and safety over the past couple of years. Critics have argued that such exits signal internal tension between OpenAI's commercial ambitions and its stated commitment to developing AI safely.
Key concerns raised by observers include:
- The absence of a dedicated ethics lead as OpenAI scales its products
- A continuing trend of safety-focused staff leaving the organization
- Limited transparency around why these departures are occurring
For a company positioned at the forefront of artificial intelligence, the loss of its only dedicated ethicist without a clear plan to backfill the position underscores ongoing questions about whether OpenAI's oversight functions can keep pace with its rapid growth.