Anthropic's New Public Benefit Fund

Quick note before we jump into things here. I'll be going into the body shop for a total shoulder replacement on November 6th, which will take me out of commission for a while. So, Godspeed will be missing from your inbox for a few weeks, at which point I'll have to learn to hunt and peck with one hand on the keyboard. Or maybe voice to text? Either way, it should be interesting. Between now and then, I'll try to make up for this sabbatical by writing multiple issues each week, so that you'll be sick of me and ready for a break! (It will also allow me to test the results of more frequency with readership.) That's all – R

Anthropic just announced its intent to contribute 5% of its stock to a new Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, characterized by the company as a move to help society respond to the job market disruption artificial intelligence will foment.

Five percent of its stock – Anthropic aims to go public later this year – could amount to $100 billion at current valuation estimates, perhaps the largest philanthropic gift on record.

(Not to be outdone, space cowboy Elon Musk pulled out his ruler to measure his and said he would be giving a share of SpaceX to every kid in America, somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 billion at its latest stock price. Apparently the giving virus is catching!)

So, who’s to argue with a “donation” of $100 billion.

Well, I might, for one.

Now, I really want to like Anthropic.  Its founders split from OpenAI because they didn’t think the company was prioritizing safety, and thus Anthropic was born.  It was started as a public benefit corporation, which – as the name implies – requires a company to create a stated benefit for the public.  Good things all.

But this “gift” feels more like throwing a reputational wad of money at a big problem, a potential crisis the company itself is helping to create. Blind remediation like that just feels weird.

Interesting, too, is that Anthropic’s new fund won’t be a nonprofit – it will be a wholly owned LLC, with the rationale of giving the fund “adjustability between different forms of giving.”  Now what in the hell does that mean?  If somebody can translate that – or has seen a good explanation – please let me know.

Anthropic acknowledges that to this point, its public benefit work has been happening internally at the company, building the technology that will benefit the public in ways that to this point are opaque.  The new fund brings the ability to expand its impact externally, perhaps by making donations to nonprofits or other non-Anthropic endeavors.

One positive development – For a couple years now, wee-little voice from the desert here has been asking Anthropic to publish its public benefit report, to no avail. (Public benefit corporations incorporated in Delaware are required to produce a public benefit report every two years, but are not required to share it with the “public.”  Again, weird.)  In announcing its new benefit fund, Anthropic said it would “report on its progress to date against our mission in an upcoming public benefit report.”  No date given for its upcoming publication.

That’s one benefit report I’ll be excited to read when it's released.

Godspeed, friends.

Russ