Amanda Askell

Amanda Askell grew up in Prestwick, a small seaside town on Scotland's west coast, raised by her mother, a teacher. As a kid, she devoured Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. The big questions grabbed her early.

She studied fine art and philosophy at the University of Dundee - painting and thinking about existence simultaneously. Then Oxford for a BPhil in philosophy. Then New York University for a PhD, where her thesis tackled one of philosophy's strangest corners: what happens to ethics when you apply it to infinite populations?

In a field obsessed with computer science degrees, she arrived at AI with a completely different toolkit: moral philosophy, ethics, and a deep comfort with ambiguity.

She worked at OpenAI on safety research, then left when the company shifted toward capabilities over caution. She joined Anthropic, where she now leads the team responsible for Claude's character - its personality, values, and moral reasoning.

She wrote Claude's 30,000-word instruction manual. Anthropic's president Daniela Amodei says "you almost feel a little bit of Amanda's personality" when talking to Claude.

TIME named her one of the 100 Most Influential People in AI. The Wall Street Journal's headline: "Her job, simply put, is to teach Claude how to be good."

She's committed to donating 10% of her lifetime income and half her equity to charity.

Her philosophy: AI models will inevitably develop a sense of self and someone needs to make sure that self has good values. That someone is a painter-philosopher from a small Scottish town.

Last Updated: February 2026