Anthropic Launches Institute for the Impact of Powerful AI

Anthropic recently announced the creation of the Anthropic Institute, an internal think tank dedicated to in-depth analysis of the impact of powerful artificial intelligences on various aspects of society, the economy, and security. This new institute will be led by Jack Clark, co-founder of Anthropic, who will now serve as Head of Public Good.

The primary objective of this institute is to examine how AI technologies are changing the employment landscape, what new risks may emerge from misuse, and what values are conveyed by these systems. Additionally, the institute will focus on how humans can maintain control over self-improving AI systems.

The team at the Anthropic Institute consists of around 30 experts drawn from three pre-existing research groups: the Frontier Red Team, the Societal Impacts team, and the Economics research team. Among the notable early recruits are Matt Botvinick, formerly of Google DeepMind, Anton Korinek from the University of Virginia, and Zoe Hitzig, who previously worked at OpenAI.

This launch comes at a delicate time for Anthropic, which has recently filed lawsuits against 17 federal agencies and the Executive Office of the President, following its classification as a risk to the supply chain. Despite these challenges, Jack Clark stated that he had "no concerns" regarding research funding. Furthermore, Anthropic announced the opening of a new office in Washington, D.C.