Claude CEO: I Hope I’m Wrong

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, explaining just how bad things are about to get.

As we’ve written about many times before, Anthropic are our favourite AI company by a country mile… And this recent clip is just another reason why.

As veteran journalist Anderson Cooper suggests in wide-eyed surprise, being open about the significant and negative effects of his product is definitely not in the CEO’s best interests.

But this is why it’s so impressive to learn about Anthropic’s unique corporate structure. Despite recently minting all 7 of Anthropic’s founders (each a former employee of OpenAI, including Dario’s sister Daniela) as legit billionaires, the company chose to incorporate as an Delaware public-benefit corporation (PBC), which enables directors to ‘balance the financial interests of stockholders with its public benefit purpose’.

The company’s "Long-Term Benefit Trust" is a purpose trust for "the responsible development and maintenance of advanced AI for the long-term benefit of humanity", which allow the PBC to elect directors onto Anthropic's board.

Why does any of this matter?

Because when your ‘seed’ funding comes from convicted crypto problem child Sam Bankman-Fried and your investors include Amazon ($8B) and Google ($2B), I think it’s safe to assume that - left unchecked - your technology can and will be used to extract as much value for the least number of people as possible.

However, when the founders’ very own public-benefit corporation has the ability to choose who oversees the ongoing operations, then it sends a very clear message to everyone involved:

“Yes, we discovered a giant uranium deposit directly under our property. Something this valuable and dangerous must be shared with those who stand to lose the most from its use, not just those who will inevitably gain from it regardless”.