Investigation: Financial Ties Between AI Safety Orgs and Anthropic
An investigation by Kevin Bass revealed financial links between organizations promoting AI danger narratives and Anthropic via the grantmaker Coefficient Giving.
Independent researcher Kevin Bass conducted an investigation that uncovered interesting financial connections between the commissioners of content about "AI dangers" and Anthropic.
Among the frequent commissioners of such "scare stories" were the Center for AI Safety and the Future of Life Institute. These organizations have a major private donor – Coefficient Giving (formerly known as Open Philanthropy). This fund belongs to Dustin Moskovitz, one of the early and largest shareholders of Anthropic.
Meanwhile, money for grantmaking flows to Coefficient Giving from the Good Ventures foundation, which is primarily filled by Moskovitz's personal wealth. Bass claims that a significant portion of the foundation's assets consists of Anthropic stock.
In addition to the Center for AI Safety and the Future of Life Institute, Coefficient Giving invests in the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism. This program trains journalists who write about AI. Its graduates write for major publications such as The Verge, Science, LA Times, and TIME.
And to top it all off: Coefficient Giving, through a chain of other foundations, funds METR – an organization that Dario Amodei himself called an absolutely independent third-party evaluator of model safety. Now it turns out that METR is, in fact, financially interested in Anthropic's success.
Why it matters
AnalysisThis investigation raises questions about the independence of AI safety assessments and journalism, revealing potential conflicts of interest between model developers and the organizations funding the narrative.
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