Anthropic has spent the last five years warning the world about how advanced artificial intelligence could enable mass destruction, destabilize society and cause a range of other sedate harm. But at the same time, it has become one of the most powerful forces driving artificial intelligence capabilities. The company is currently one of the leading creators and distributors of cutting-edge artificial intelligence models and is recognized by customers such as the US military. It was recently valued at almost $1 trillion.
At first glance, Anthropic’s raw message and its actions seem fundamentally contradictory.
But inside the company, many people do not see the contradiction. To understand why, you must first understand that Anthropic operates on two core beliefs. First, artificial intelligence is the most revolutionary technology in human history and its emergence is inevitable. The only question is whether it will lead to disaster or extraordinary prosperity.
Second, Anthropic believes the world will be a better place if it stays on the frontier of the AI race, according to several former employees who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity. Internally, the company’s leaders and employees often refer to themselves as “good guys,” meaning those who are responsible stewards of artificial intelligence technology, two sources said. The company sees the accumulation of power – whether in the form of capital, computation, research talent, or political influence – not as an end in itself, but as a price for fulfilling its goals. mission: “to ensure the world transitions safely through transformative AI.”
Helen Toner, executive director of Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technologies and former OpenAI board member, uses analogy describe the Anthropic worldview. He compares the powerful artificial intelligence to a forest filled with both magical treasures and unsafe monsters. All the local villagers rush in, attracted by the treasure. According to her, Anthropic wants to go deeper into the forest than anyone else, while investing heavily in taming monsters, i.e. capturing the benefits of artificial intelligence while mitigating its catastrophic risks.
“What sets Anthropic apart is that they say, ‘Humans are going to the forest anyway, we have to do it first.’ That is very clearly their strategy: to build cutting-edge AI to be a serious player at the table that can talk about what cutting-edge AI systems should look like, what the risks they pose, and push for reasonable safeguards,” Toner tells me. “They keep it very simple. It’s just a weird enough strategy that it’s hard for people to hear.”
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei clearly described this approach in: conversations with your co-founders on the company’s careers site: “You have to find a way to actually be competitive, in some cases actually lead the industry, and at the same time do everything safely,” he says. “If you can do that, the gravitational force you exert is so great.”
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI employees who defected after losing faith in the ability of the company’s leadership – especially CEO Sam Altman – to safely bring transformative AI to the world. This feeling continues to shape the company today. Two former employees I spoke with say that in internal discussions, Anthropic executives often describe Altman and OpenAI – and, to a lesser extent, Meta’s xAI and Elon Musk – as cautionary examples that assist define Anthropic’s own sense of responsibility.
In many ways, Anthropic is like any other Silicon Valley company. Many startups market themselves as David fighting against old-fashioned, entrenched Goliaths in the industries they want to disrupt. Google, Facebook and Apple were all founded on idealistic principles that later became clouded or abandoned altogether as they became richer, bigger and more influential.