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Anthropic is not being consistently candid about their connection to EA
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burner2
Credibility Rating
3/5
Good(3)Good quality. Reputable source with community review or editorial standards, but less rigorous than peer-reviewed venues.
Rating inherited from publication venue: EA Forum
Relevant to discussions of AI lab governance, organizational transparency, and the relationship between EA-affiliated funders and major AI safety companies like Anthropic.
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314
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89
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eaforum
Forum Tags
AI safetyBuilding effective altruismCommunityAnthropicAI governanceCriticism of effective altruismEffective altruism in the media
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Importance: 38/100opinion piececommentary
Summary
This EA Forum post documents extensive ties between Anthropic and the effective altruism movement, then argues that recent public statements by Anthropic leaders downplaying those connections are misleading and likely reflect a deliberate PR strategy. The author contends this lack of candor is ethically problematic for an organization that claims honesty as a core value.
Key Points
- •Anthropic has deep EA ties: CEO Dario Amodei is a GWWC signatory, co-founder Holden Karnofsky founded Open Philanthropy, and multiple senior staff are EAs.
- •The Long-Term Benefit Trust, which holds special governance power at Anthropic, includes prominent EA figures, further embedding EA influence in the org.
- •Daniela Amodei and Amanda Askell made statements in a Wired article that the author argues misrepresent or minimize Anthropic's organizational connections to EA.
- •The post distinguishes between personal non-identification with EA (acceptable) and organizational misrepresentation (criticized as dishonest).
- •The author suggests Anthropic is distancing itself from EA for reputational reasons following controversies, at the cost of transparency.
Cited by 1 page
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic (Funder) | Analysis | 65.0 |
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Anthropic is not being consistently candid about their connection to EA — EA Forum
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by burner2 Mar 30 2025 3 min read 89 314
AI safety Building effective altruism Community Anthropic AI governance Criticism of effective altruism Effective altruism in the media Frontpage In a recent Wired article about Anthropic, there's a section where Anthropic's president, Daniela Amodei, and early employee Amanda Askell seem to suggest there's little connection between Anthropic and the EA movement:
Ask Daniela about it and she says, "I'm not the expert on effective altruism. I don't identify with that terminology. My impression is that it's a bit of an outdated term". Yet her husband, Holden Karnofsky, cofounded one of EA's most conspicuous philanthropy wings, is outspoken about AI safety, and, in January 2025, joined Anthropic. Many others also remain engaged with EA. As early employee Amanda Askell puts it, "I definitely have met people here who are effective altruists, but it's not a theme of the organization or anything". (Her ex-husband, William MacAskill, is an originator of the movement.)
This led multiple people on Twitter to call out how bizarre this is:
In my eyes, there is a large and obvious connection between Anthropic and the EA community. In addition to the ties mentioned above:
Dario, Anthropic’s CEO, was the 43rd signatory of the Giving What We Can pledge and wrote a guest post for the GiveWell blog. He also lived in a group house with Holden Karnofsky and Paul Christiano at a time when Paul and Dario were technical advisors to Open Philanthropy.
Amanda Askell was the 67th signatory of the GWWC pledge.
Many early and senior employees identify as effective altruists and/or previously worked for EA organisations
Anthropic has a " Long-Term Benefit Trust " which, in theory , can exercise significant control over the company. The current members are : Zach Robinson - CEO of the Centre for Effective Altruism.
Neil Buddy Shah - CEO of the Clinton Health Access Initiative, former Managing Director at GiveWell and speaker at multiple EA Global conferences
Kanika Bahl - CEO of Evidence Action, a long-term grantee of GiveWell.
Three of EA’s largest funders historically (Dustin Moskovitz, Sam Bankman-Fried and Jann Tallinn) were early investors in Anthropic.
Anthropic has hired a "model welfare lead" and seems to be the company most concerned about AI sentience, an issue that's discussed little outside of EA circles.
On the Future of Life podcast, Daniela said , "I think since we [Dario and her] were very, very small, we've always had this special bond around really wanting to make the world better or wanting to help people" and "he [Dario] was actually a very early
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