Also known as: ARC, ARC Alignment
| Date | Event | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Founded by Paul Christiano | Founding | Founded by Paul Christiano after his departure from OpenAI; nonprofit AI safety research organization focused on theoretical alignment. |
| 2022 | ARC Evals incubated; Beth Barnes hired to lead it | Launch | Began incubating ARC Evals — exploratory work on independent evaluations of frontier AI models. Completed evaluations of GPT-4 (with OpenAI) and Claude (with Anthropic). |
| 2022 | Open Philanthropy grant ($265K) | Funding | Documented grant from Coefficient Giving (then Open Philanthropy). |
| 2022 | Returned $1.25M FTX Foundation grant after FTX bankruptcy | Funding | — |
| Sep 2023 | ARC Evals spin-out announced | Pivot | Growth in ARC Evals' size prompted formalization of separation. |
| Dec 2023 | ARC Evals formally renamed METR | Pivot | Model Evaluation & Threat Research; independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit led by Beth Barnes. |
| Apr 2024 | Christiano appointed Head of AI Safety at US AISI | Leadership Change | Personal appointment at NIST rather than an institutional contract with ARC. |