Anthropic Promises 5% to Public Fund Amid Control Criticism

Anthropic plans to allocate at least 5% of its shares to a dedicated "public good" fund through a separate entity responsible for distributing donations. The announcement has sparked a heated debate: some applaud the philanthropic gesture, while others advocate for direct distributions or point out risks of control and opacity. Multiple modalities remain to be clarified.

Criticisms Target Control, Opacity, and Fund Circulation

Several figures have expressed doubts about the governance and purpose of the fund announced by Anthropic. Gary Marcus views the initiative as a public relations operation aimed at winning public favor while maintaining control and limiting transparency, describing it as a gesture "that smells of desperation." Patrick Moorhead questions the control that Anthropic might retain over the use of the funds, suggesting that if the goal is truly the "public good," it would be better to give directly to citizens, whom he believes are more capable of deciding how to use resources than bureaucratic institutions. Elon Musk also proposes giving the shares directly to the public and states that this is what he intends to do. Palmer Luckey, for his part, fears that the definition of "public good" adopted by Anthropic may not benefit the American public and compares the initiative to "USAID 2.0," which he describes as a way to divert billions from the American economy.

Conditional Support and the Idea of a Direct Dividend

Some stakeholders commend Anthropic's commitment while expressing reservations. Brad Gerstner calls the initiative an "extraordinary donation" but warns against the concentration of wealth within foundations, hoping that the wealth generated by AI can also benefit the public directly in the form of a dividend. Andrew Curran notes that the arrangement could include "direct distributions to specific populations," which he likens to a form of self-directed universal basic income. He also indicates that about half of Anthropic's employees are contributing shares to this fund and believes that the company envisions a transformative future.

What Anthropic Plans and the Comparison to "Reverse OpenAI"

Anthropic has announced its intention to dedicate at least 5% of its shares to a public good fund and to create a separate entity to manage these donations. Many operational modalities remain to be clarified. Sam Hogan Heutmaker compares this approach to a "reverse OpenAI": starting as a commercial company, raising funds, and then, once success is achieved, creating an independent NGO to concentrate value in this new entity controlled by the initiators.