OpenAI hires new preparedness manager to try to predict and mitigate AI harm

OpenAI is looking for a new Readiness Lead who can help anticipate potential harm from its models and how they can be abused, in order to guide the company’s security strategy. This comes at the end of a year in which OpenAI has faced numerous accusations regarding ChatGPT’s impacts on users’ mental health, including some. wrongful death lawsuits. In an article on X about the position, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged that “the potential impact of models on mental health was something we got a glimpse of in 2025,” as well as other “real challenges” that emerged alongside the capabilities of models. The preparedness manager “plays a crucial role at an important time,” he said.

According to the job listthe Readiness Lead (who will earn $555,000, plus equity), will “lead the technical strategy and execution of the OpenAI project.” Preparation frameworkour framework explaining OpenAI’s approach to monitoring and preparing for surge capabilities that create new risks of serious harm. It is, according to Altman, “a stressful job and you’ll dive into the deep end almost immediately.” “

Over the past two years, OpenAI security teams to have suffered a lot of changes. The company former head of preparationAlexandre Madry, was reassigned in July 2024, and Altman said at the time that the role would be taken over by executives Joaquin Quinonero Candela and Lilian Weng. Wenge left the company a few months later, and in July 2025, Quinonero Candela announcement his departure from the prep team to lead recruiting at OpenAI.