The claim that Amanda Askell is the 67th GWWC signatory is reportedly sourced from EA Forum discussion (https://forum...
blogThis EA Forum post provides critical analysis of Anthropic's public positioning regarding its connections to effective altruism, documenting ties between the company leadership and EA institutions, relevant to understanding corporate governance and transparency in AI safety-focused organizations.
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This EA Forum post argues that Anthropic is being misleading about its connections to the effective altruism (EA) movement. The author documents extensive ties between Anthropic and EA, including that CEO Dario Amodei was a GWWC signatory, co-founder Holden Karnofsky founded Open Philanthropy, multiple senior employees are EAs, and the Long-Term Benefit Trust includes prominent EA figures. The post criticizes recent statements by Daniela Amodei and Amanda Askell in a Wired article that downplayed these connections, arguing that while they need not personally identify as EA, claiming minimal organizational ties appears dishonest and likely reflects a deliberate communications strategy to distance Anthropic from EA due to reputational concerns.
Cited by 2 pages
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| Anthropic (Funder) | Analysis | 65.0 |
| Anthropic Pre-IPO DAF Transfers | Analysis | 58.0 |
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Anthropic is not being consistently candid about their connection to EA — EA Forum
This website requires javascript to properly function. Consider activating javascript to get access to all site functionality. Anthropic is not being consistently candid about their connection to EA
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 My impression is that it's a bit of an outdated term".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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