AI Claude is Said to be the Most Empathetic; This is the Woman Behind It

For those who have tried various popular artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, they may notice a small difference when chatting with Claude. When users share their grievances, work problems, or bad days, this AI created by Anthropic often responds with sentences that feel very human and warm, such as, “That sounds really hard.” This response doesn’t feel like a typical rigid robot template, but rather like the empathy of a friend who is listening attentively. Claude’s ability to “feel” emotions and respond with empathy has made it frequently praised as an AI that most humanizes its users. But where does a machine made up of billions of parameters and computer code learn about empathy? It turns out, the empathetic “soul” within Claude is not just the result of random algorithms. There is the involvement of a female philosopher from Scotland named Amanda Askell behind it. In Silicon Valley, which is usually dominated by computer engineers who have been skilled at coding since they were teenagers, the presence of Amanda Askell is an anomaly. Askell is the Head of Personality Alignment at Anthropic. Instead of taking care of server speed or designing hardware, her main task is to instill a moral compass and define Claude’s personality. Growing up in Prestwick, Scotland, Askell was raised by her mother who worked as a teacher. Her interest in questions about existence and morality began when she was young, starting from her hobby of reading the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Her educational background is very different from the impression of the programming world, as summarized by KompasTekno from WSJ. Askell began her journey by studying fine arts and philosophy together at the University of Dundee, where she became accustomed to painting while also contemplating the meaning of life. Her academic journey continued at the University of Oxford to earn a BPhil degree, and culminated at New York University (NYU) where she earned a PhD. At NYU, Askell’s thesis discussed one of the most complex areas of philosophy, namely infinite ethics. She grappled with questions about how morality works when applied to an infinitely large population. Armed with moral philosophy and her ability to embrace ambiguity, Askell finally stepped into the world of artificial intelligence.