Jan Leike
Alignment researcher at Anthropic
An AI alignment researcher who co-led OpenAI's superalignment project and now works on alignment at Anthropic.
Biography
Jan Leike is an AI alignment researcher who has worked at DeepMind and OpenAI and joined Anthropic in May 2024. He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Freiburg in Germany, a master's in computer science, and a PhD in machine learning at the Australian National University under Marcus Hutter. He then held a six-month postdoctoral fellowship at the Future of Humanity Institute before joining DeepMind to focus on empirical AI safety research, collaborating with Shane Legg.
In 2021 he joined OpenAI. In June 2023 he and Ilya Sutskever became co-leaders of the superalignment project, which aimed to work out how to align future superintelligent systems within four years by automating alignment research. In May 2024 he resigned, writing that safety culture and processes had taken a backseat to shiny products. TIME named him to its list of the 100 most influential people in AI in 2023 and 2024.
Notable contributions
Co-led OpenAI's superalignment project
In 2023, with Ilya Sutskever, led the project to determine how to align future superintelligent AI systems within four years, including by automating alignment research.
Spoke out on safety culture on leaving OpenAI
Resigned in May 2024 and publicly said safety culture and processes had taken a backseat to shiny products, a statement widely covered in the debate on AI governance.
Career history
Head of Alignment and co-lead of superalignment
