Anthropic CEO claps back after Trump officials accuse firm of AI fear-mongering  

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a statement Tuesday to “set the grounds straight” connected the company’s alignment with Trump medication AI policy, responding to what helium called “a caller uptick successful inaccurate claims astir Anthropic’s argumentation stances.” 

“Anthropic is built connected a elemental principle: AI should beryllium a unit for human progress, not peril,” Amodei wrote. “That means making products that are genuinely useful, speaking honestly astir risks and benefits, and moving with anyone superior astir getting this right.” 

Amodei’s effect comes aft last week’s dogpiling connected Anthropic from AI leaders and apical members of the Trump administration, including AI czar David Sacks and White House elder argumentation advisor for AI Sriram Krishnan — each accusing the AI elephantine of stoking fears to harm the industry.  

The archetypal deed came from Sacks aft Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark shared his hopes and “appropriate fears” astir AI, including that AI is simply a powerful, mysterious, “somewhat unpredictable” creature, not a dependable instrumentality that’s easy mastered and enactment to work.  

Sacks’s response: “Anthropic is moving a blase regulatory seizure strategy based connected fear-mongering. It is principally liable for the authorities regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem.”  

California Senator Scott Wiener, writer of AI information measure SB 53, defended Anthropic, calling retired President Trump’s “effort to prohibition states from acting connected AI w/o advancing national protections.” Sacks past doubled down, claiming Anthropic was moving with Wiener to “impose the Left’s imaginativeness of AI regulation.” 

Further commentary ensued, with anti-regulation advocates similar Groq COO Sunny Madra saying that Anthropic was “causing chaos for the full industry” by advocating for a modicum of AI information measures alternatively of unfettered innovation. 

In his statement, Amodei said managing the societal impacts of AI should beryllium a substance of “policy implicit politics,” and that helium believes everyone wants to guarantee America secures its pb successful AI improvement portion besides gathering tech that benefits the American people. He defended Anthropic’s alignment with the Trump medication successful cardinal areas of AI argumentation and called retired examples of times helium personally played shot with the president.  

For example, Amodei pointed to Anthropic’s enactment with the national government, including the firm’s offering of Claude to the national government and Anthropic’s $200 cardinal statement with the Department of Defense (which Amodei called “the Department of War,” echoing Trump’s preferred terminology, though the sanction alteration requires legislature approval). He besides noted that Anthropic publically praised Trump’s AI Action Plan and has been supportive of Trump’s efforts to grow vigor proviso to “win the AI race.” 

Despite these shows of cooperation, Anthropic has caught vigor from manufacture peers from stepping extracurricular the Silicon Valley statement connected definite argumentation issues. 

The institution archetypal drew ire from Silicon Valley-linked officials erstwhile it opposed a proposed 10-year ban connected state-level AI regulation, a proviso that faced wide bipartisan pushback. 

Many successful Silicon Valley, including leaders astatine OpenAI, person claimed that authorities AI regularisation would dilatory down the manufacture and manus China the lead. Amodei countered that the existent hazard is that the U.S. continues to capable China’s information centers with almighty AI chips from Nvidia, adding that Anthropic restricts the merchantability of its AI services to China-controlled companies contempt gross hits.  

“There are products we volition not physique and risks we volition not take, adjacent if they would marque money,” Amodei said. 

Anthropic besides fell retired of favour with definite powerfulness players erstwhile it supported California’s SB 53, a light-touch information measure that requires the largest AI developers to marque frontier exemplary information protocols public. Amodei noted that the measure has a carve-out for companies with yearly gross gross beneath $500 million, which would exempt astir startups from immoderate undue burdens.  

“Some person suggested that we are someway funny successful harming the startup ecosystem,” Amodei wrote, referring to Sacks’s post. “Startups are among our astir important customers. We enactment with tens of thousands of startups and spouse with hundreds of accelerators and VCs. Claude is powering an wholly caller generation of AI-native companies. Damaging that ecosystem makes nary consciousness for us.” 

In his statement, Amodei said it has grown from a $1 cardinal to $7 cardinal run-rate implicit the past 9 months portion managing to deploy “AI thoughtfully and responsibly.” 

“Anthropic is committed to constructive engagement connected matters of nationalist policy. When we agree, we accidental so. When we don’t, we suggest an alternate for consideration,” Amodei wrote. “We are going to support being honorable and straightforward, and volition basal up for the policies we judge are right. The stakes of this exertion are excessively large for america to bash otherwise.”