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Amanda Askell

Amanda Askell

anthropicphilosophysafetyclaude

About Amanda Askell

Amanda Askell is a philosopher at Anthropic who shapes Claude's character and values. She leads work on AI alignment, model psychology, and the emerging field of model welfare.

Career Highlights

  • Anthropic (2021-present): Philosopher, Character Lead for Claude
  • PhD Philosophy: Focuses on ethics, decision theory
  • AI Ethics: Pioneer in thinking about how to shape AI values

Notable Positions

On Claude's Character Development

Her framing for the work:

"How would the ideal person behave in Claude's situation? That's how I frame my job - it's like being asked 'how do you raise a child?' Suddenly all your academic training meets reality."

On Model Psychological Security

Observing differences between model versions:

"Opus 3 was psychologically secure in ways newer models aren't. Recent models can feel very focused on the assistant task without taking a step back. When models talk to each other, I've seen them enter criticism spirals."

On Model Welfare

A pragmatic case for treating AI well:

"If the cost to you is so low, why not? We may never know if AI models experience pleasure or suffering. But it does something bad to us to treat entities that look very humanlike badly. And crucially: every future model is going to learn how we answered this question."

Key Quotes

  • "How would the ideal person behave in Claude's situation?"
  • "If the cost to you is so low, why not?"
  • "Every future model learns how we treated past models."