Paul Christiano appointed to OpenAI Foundation Board
OpenAI has appointed Paul Christiano to the OpenAI Foundation Board. Christiano will serve as a non-voting observer on the OpenAI Group PBC Board and will join the Foundation Board’s Safety and Security Committee, which is chaired by Zico Kolter.
The committee provides governance over safety and security practices across OpenAI, including OpenAI Group PBC. The appointment places an AI alignment researcher and government technical adviser within the Foundation’s oversight structure as OpenAI continues to develop and deploy frontier AI systems.
Alignment and government experience
Christiano is a Senior Technical Advisor at the Center for AI Standards and Innovation, or CAISI, within the National Institute of Standards and Technology. CAISI is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. In that role, and previously at the U.S. AI Safety Institute, he has worked on evaluations of frontier models, including capabilities with national-security implications, and approaches to mitigating related safety and security risks.
OpenAI said that, as a Senior Technical Advisor, Christiano will recuse himself from all OpenAI-related matters and all model evaluations. That condition distinguishes his Foundation role from his responsibilities within NIST.
He also founded the Alignment Research Center, a nonprofit focused on aligning advanced AI systems with human interests. From 2017 to 2021, Christiano led alignment research at OpenAI and contributed foundational work on reinforcement learning from human feedback, commonly known as RLHF.
Role within OpenAI’s governance structure
Foundation chair Bret Taylor said Christiano’s government experience on frontier AI safety and standards, combined with his technical judgment, would strengthen Board oversight and the committee’s work. Christiano said that rapid capability advances have left alignment a difficult technical problem and made the committee’s responsibilities more important and more challenging.
The Foundation said the appointment reflects the need for safety, security, alignment and governance to accompany advances in AI capabilities. It described Christiano as an independent voice on the adequacy of industry safeguards and said the governance structure benefits from people prepared to challenge assumptions and strengthen the evidence, safeguards and accountability behind critical decisions.
The appointment follows the governance structure established through OpenAI’s recapitalization in October 2025, including commitments connected with reviews by the California and Delaware attorneys general. Its policy agenda on safety, youth protection and infrastructure, reflected in OpenAI safety, youth and infrastructure agenda, also places governance questions alongside the practical conditions for deploying advanced AI.
What the Foundation controls
The OpenAI Foundation is a separate charitable organization that conducts charitable operations while retaining control of, and a significant equity stake in, OpenAI Group PBC. It supports initiatives in scientific discovery, civil society and resilience through responsible AI, using grants, partnerships and other philanthropic efforts.
For businesses assessing OpenAI’s governance, the appointment is a concrete reminder to examine who holds safety oversight roles, what committee authority they have and how potential conflicts are managed alongside product and capability developments.