Decoding the A.I. Beliefs of Anthropic and Its C.E.O., Dario Amodei

The Defense Department has approved the cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology built by the San Francisco start-up Anthropic for use with classified tasks.

But Anthropic, led by its chief executive, Dario Amodei, does not want the Pentagon using the technology in certain situations, such as the use of autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance.

Now, the Pentagon and Anthropic are locked in a battle over the future of their contract, which is worth as much as $200 million. The Defense Department may also forbid its contractors from using Anthropic’s technology on government projects.

With several other A.I. companies hoping to provide similar technology to the Defense Department — including OpenAI, Google and Elon Musk’s xAI — the tussle between Anthropic and the Pentagon could damage Anthropic’s growing business selling A.I. to big corporate customers.

Here is a guide to Anthropic, Dr. Amodei and the company’s A.I. philosophy.

What is Anthropic?

Anthropic was founded by Dr. Amodei and his sister, Daniela Amodei, who worked together at OpenAI. They created their company in early 2021 after a series of disagreements with OpenAI executives over how its A.I. should be funded, built and released.

They founded Anthropic alongside about 15 other former OpenAI employees who shared their views. The group that left OpenAI to start Anthropic oversaw the creation of OpenAI’s large language models, the technology that eventually powered the chatbot ChatGPT.

Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like.