Anthropic pours another $20 million into AI safety group

Anthropic will pour another $20 million into Public First Action, the nonprofit organization advocating for safeguards on artificial intelligence.

The contribution, announced by the company Wednesday, brings the Claude-maker’s total funds given to the group to $40 million.

Public First Action is the policy arm of Public First, a super PAC backing candidates who support stronger guardrails on AI. Anthropic emphasized the latest contribution was made for the organization’s “public-education and policy mission,” and cannot be used to “influence” any federal, state or local election candidates.

AI firms and their executives are playing a larger role than ever in the midterms cycle, with the industry poised to be one of the elections’ top spenders.

Anthropic’s latest donation comes a week after recent campaign finance filings showed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei gave $1 million to the super PAC, while several company employees gave a combined $2.15 million over the last quarter.

The firm gave $20 million the group for its first donation in February.

Explaining the timing, Anthropic pointed to its release of Claude Mythos Preview, its most advanced AI cybersecurity model at the time. The model was released initially to a limited set of cybersecurity, technology and financial institutions, along with the government.

“In the wrong hands, models like this could threaten the critical systems the country relies on, from hospitals to the energy grid,” the company wrote in a release.

The company said that more capable models will yield benefits in science, medicine and the economy, but “we need to make sure we are protected against the risks first in order to realize those benefits.”

While an increasing number of technology companies are supporting transparency requirements about their AI development, Anthropic and Amodei have argued for a step further.

In a framework proposal last month, Amodei wrote governments should have the power to block dangerous deployments of artificial intelligence if they don’t meet a certain safety standard. He called for not only a government testing process, but also mandatory testing by a third-party auditor to check for risks related to cybersecurity, biological weapons, loss of control of AI systems, and automated research and development.

Anthropic’s competitors argue such a proposal could stall U.S. model releases, and risk curbing competition with China.

Anthropic acknowledged the growing concerns around national security, stating the U.S. and its Democratic allies “have the advantage today, but that lead is tenuous.” The company pushed for tightened export controls on advanced chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and policy efforts to curb distillation of U.S. models.

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