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---
category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
tags:
- Person
- OpenAI
- Anthropic
- OpenPhilanthropy
- AISafety
- NIST
summary: "OpenAI alignment lead and Open Philanthropy adviser who founded the Alignment Research Center, sat on Anthropic's trust, ran AI safety at NIST's AI Safety Institute and joined the OpenAI Foundation board in 2026."
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[OpenAI]]"
role: "head of alignment research"
start: 2017
end: 2021
fn: 1
- type: founded
with: "[[Alignment Research Center]]"
fn: 1
- type: member_of
with: "[[Long-Term Benefit Trust]]"
role: "trustee"
start: 2023-09
end: 2024-04
fn: 3
- type: employed_by
with: "[[National Institute of Standards and Technology]]"
role: "head of AI safety, U.S. AI Safety Institute; later senior technical advisor, Center for AI Standards and Innovation"
start: 2024-04
fn: 4
- type: member_of
with: "[[OpenAI Foundation]]"
role: "director and Safety and Security Committee member; non-voting observer on the OpenAI Group PBC board"
start: 2026-09-09
fn: 1
created: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-09-23
---
Paul Christiano led alignment research at [[OpenAI]] from 2017 to 2021 and contributed foundational work on reinforcement learning from human feedback; he then founded the [[Alignment Research Center]].[^1] In March 2017, when [[Open Philanthropy]] recommended 30 million dollars to OpenAI and a seat on its board for [[Holden Karnofsky]], the grant page disclosed that "OpenAI researchers [[Dario Amodei]] and Paul Christiano are both technical advisors to Open Philanthropy and live in the same house as Holden," and that Karnofsky was engaged to Amodei's sister [[Daniela Amodei|Daniela]].[^2]
In September 2023 Christiano became one of the five original trustees of [[Anthropic]]'s [[Long-Term Benefit Trust]], the body empowered to elect a growing share of the board of the company founded by Dario and Daniela Amodei. He left in April 2024 to become head of AI safety at the [[U.S. AI Safety Institute]].[^3] Commerce Secretary [[Gina Raimondo]] announced the appointment on April 16, 2024.[^4] The Action Fund of the [[Center for AI Safety]], an Open Philanthropy grantee, stated that it had led a bipartisan congressional effort that "secured $10 million to establish" the institute.[^5]
### The OpenAI Foundation
On September 9, 2026, the [[OpenAI Foundation]], the nonprofit that controls OpenAI Group PBC, appointed Christiano to its board and its Safety and Security Committee, chaired by [[Zico Kolter]], and made him a non-voting observer on the board of the for-profit company. The announcement described him as a senior technical advisor at the [[Center for AI Standards and Innovation]] within the [[National Institute of Standards and Technology]], where he had "worked on evaluating frontier AI models, including capabilities with national security implications," and stated: "As a Senior Technical Advisor, Paul will recuse himself from all OpenAI-related matters as well as all model evaluations." The board chair, [[Bret Taylor]], said his "experience working on frontier AI safety and standards in government" would strengthen the board's oversight.[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: OpenAI Foundation, "Paul Christiano joins OpenAI Foundation Board," September 9, 2026. https://openaifoundation.org/news/paul-christiano-joins-openai-foundation-board
[^2]: Open Philanthropy, "OpenAI, General Support," grant of March 2017, archived January 1, 2025. http://web.archive.org/web/20250101012608/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/openai-general-support/
[^3]: Anthropic, "The Long-Term Benefit Trust," September 19, 2023, with later updates. https://www.anthropic.com/news/the-long-term-benefit-trust
[^4]: National Institute of Standards and Technology, "U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo Announces Expansion of U.S. AI Safety Institute Leadership Team," April 16, 2024. https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2024/04/us-commerce-secretary-gina-raimondo-announces-expansion-us-ai-safety
[^5]: Center for AI Safety Action Fund, "2024 Annual Impact Report." https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/66438c042d15b14b53b83006/68012dcfec6880aba24f528a_CAIS-ActionFund-ImpactReport_05.pdf