In 2021, a group of researchers dramatically departed OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. Led by Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s former vice president of research, they cited deep concerns about “AI safety.” The company was moving too fast, they warned, prioritising commercial interests over humanity’s future. The risks were said to be existential. These Effective Altruists were going to do things the right way.
Their solution? Start a new company called Anthropic, premised on building AI “the right way” with “safety” (that word will become a recurring theme), and “proper guardrails.” They initially raised hundreds of millions (today, that number is in the tens of billions) from investors who bought the pitch: we’re the good guys preventing runaway artificial general intelligence (“AGI”).
Noble, right? Except these supposed guardrails against AGI have become pretty much impossible to quantify. What we do have is an incredibly sophisticated content moderation system that filters inquiries and commands through a Silicon Valley thought bubble. It doesn’t seem like they’re trying to prevent AGI from destroying humanity, but instead, to prevent you from challenging the core tenets of their political philosophy.
Go ahead and try to generate content questioning climate ideology, the trans agenda, voter ID laws or election integrity, and watch the “safety” guardrails kick in.
This isn’t about preventing Skynet. It’s about making sure AI parrots the right opinions and associates with the right kind of people.
Now that Anthropic is its own technology giant of an AI company, they are facing the same critiques from true believers in the space. Amodei has put his principles on hold to allow for foreign investment from Gulf states with a poor human rights track record. However, the company remains guided by a secular progressive “philosopher” whose values remain entirely detached from America’s founding ideas.
Hellbound and Down 