Women in AI
Amanda Askell
Research Scientist, Anthropic
Amanda Askell is a Research Scientist at Anthropic, the AI safety company behind Claude, where she leads the alignment finetuning team responsible for shaping Claude's character and behavior. She is a key architect of Anthropic's 'Constitutional AI' approach, working to ensure Claude is helpful, honest, and harmless.
Before joining Anthropic in 2021, Askell was a Research Scientist focused on policy at OpenAI. She holds a PhD in Philosophy from New York University, where her thesis explored 'Pareto Principles in Infinite Ethics' under the supervision of Cian Dorr, with David Chalmers and Shelly Kagan on her committee. She also earned a BPhil in Philosophy from the University of Oxford.
Her unique background in formal ethics and decision theory gives her a distinctive perspective on AI alignment — bridging rigorous philosophical reasoning with the practical challenges of training large language models to behave responsibly.
