Chloé Bakalar joined OpenAI as its dedicated AI ethics lead in August last year. Bakalar’s role was reportedly unlike anything else inside OpenAI — she was specifically focused on building ethical frameworks for AI model development, thinking through how humans interact with AI systems, and even evaluating questions around machine consciousness. Before OpenAI, Bakalar spent six years at Meta, where she worked on embedding AI ethics into platforms like Instagram and Facebook. That’s the backdrop against which OpenAI’s ethics role now sits empty. Chloé Bakalar was OpenAI’s head of ethics, joining in August last year and leaving in July.