Dario Amodei defends AI regulation, admits industry faces crisis of trust

Anthropic CEO says AI backlash is 'fundamentally a crisis of trust'

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently pushed back against the idea that he's been painting an overly pessimistic picture of artificial intelligence and its potential to shape the future. Amodei's comments came in response to investor Gavin Baker, who argued -- both on the All-In podcast and on X -- that Amodei's warnings about the dangers of AI have helped to fuel a backlash in the United States, particularly against data centers. Claiming that Amodei has "lost the argument" when it comes to AI regulation (Anthropic has advocated for some regulations, including a California bill that imposes transparency requirements on large AI companies), and given that "he is about to be the CEO of one of the most important companies in the world," Baker wrote, "I respectfully think he should make an effort to be a more positive advocate for his own industry." Baker is far from the only one arguing that AI skepticism and even government crackdowns stem in part from simply taking the dire warnings of some AI executives seriously. But in his response, Amodei disagreed with the idea that his "messaging has been disproportionately negative." Instead, he said that his writing has been "about equally balanced between risks and benefits," and that he wrote his essay "Machines of Loving Grace" because he "didn't feel the AI industry was painting an inspiring enough picture of how the technology could radically transform the world for the better." Nonetheless, Amodei acknowledged that "the public has a negative view of AI" and he agreed that "this is a big problem." Where he disagreed was with the idea that this is "primarily caused" by Amodei "or any other AI leader warning about AI's risks." "I think it is fundamentally a crisis of trust," Amodei said. "I think that ordinary people don't trust companies, governments, or the tech industry and always suspect that we are cooking up some new way to screw them over." Indeed, "trust" is a word that often comes up in debates about the AI industry, especially around OpenAI CEO (and Amodei's rival) Sam Altman. In Amodei's telling, however, this is a crisis that's been decades in the making, with the AI backlash "just the latest iteration of it." "I think by far the most accurate criticism of AI companies including Anthropic is that we haven't yet delivered on our big promises to benefit the world," Amodei said. "That is totally on us, and I think it's the criticism you should be making, instead of all this stuff about messaging and marketing." (Naturally, he also said Anthropic is "doing our best to fix this.") As for regulation, Amodei argued that Baker was painting "a false choice" between distributing AI widely without regulation, or concentrating the technology in the hands of a few companies through regulation. "I know that there's a sort of Silicon Valley shorthand where regulation = regulatory capture = concentration of power, but I've always found this to be an overly simplified picture of the world," Amodei said. "Many people outside this bubble think of regulation as something that constrains corporate power and benefits ordinary people." Amodei added that he doesn't "necessarily agree with that perspective either," but he said that's "why Anthropic has always made its policy proposals very carefully." "We try very hard to make proposals that disadvantage (slow down) frontier AI companies while *advantaging* smaller competitors," he said.

Dario Amodei admits AI companies have not delivered on their promises

Dario Amodei concedes the industry has not made good on its claims and argues only real scientific results will change public opinion, as his company heads for a listing priced on those results arriving Dario Amodei wrote on X that the most accurate criticism of AI companies including Anthropic is that they have not yet delivered on their promises, and that only genuine breakthroughs will win public trust. It lands as Anthropic prepares a listing that backers expect to value it at $2trn. Dario Amodei has conceded the case against his own industry. "The most accurate criticism of AI companies, including Anthropic, is that we haven't yet delivered on our big promises to benefit the world," Anthropic's chief executive wrote on X on Saturday. His prescription is blunter than the admission. "At this point, saying that AI will cure cancer is more a cliché than it is inspiring, and most people think it is deceptive," he wrote. "The thing that will work is actually curing cancer." The timing gives it weight. Anthropic is weeks from a listing its backers expect to value the company at $2trn in October, a price that rests almost entirely on what the technology will do rather than what it has done. The public evidence supports his premise. Pew found half of American adults more concerned than excited about AI in daily life, against 10% who were more excited, up from 37% concerned when the question was first asked in 2021. He does not accept that his own warnings caused it. "I do not agree that my messaging has been disproportionately negative," he wrote, pointing to Machines of Loving Grace, his 2024 essay arguing that AI could transform the world for the better. His explanation is broader and harder to test. Public distrust of AI companies, he argued, reflects decades of scepticism towards corporations generally, and "AI is just the latest iteration of it." Others were unconvinced that breakthroughs are enough. An OpenAI employee replied that the pharmaceutical industry delivers advances constantly and remains among the least trusted sectors there is. People will judge AI companies on more than results, she wrote, listing pricing, access, lobbying, opacity, how the gains are shared and who ends up holding the power. Yann LeCun made the argument Anthropic is least comfortable with. The only way forward is AI that is "widely available, shared, and open," the former Meta chief AI scientist wrote, a position Anthropic rejects for its frontier models while Meta presses Washington the other way. Amodei ended with a schedule. Anthropic hopes for "incredible results in the coming years and some early glimmers in the coming months," which puts the listing comfortably ahead of the glimmers.

Dario Amodei admits AI suffers from a crisis of trust, saying people worry companies or governments are 'cooking up some new way to screw them over' | Fortune

Anthropic cofounder and CEO Dario Amodei pushed back on the notion that he's responsible for the public's overall sense of doom around AI, but acknowledged there are trust issues. In a lengthy post on X on Saturday, which is unusual as he generally stays away from social media, he first addressed AI regulation, describing a false choice between those who argue it leads to regulatory capture and concentration of power versus those who think widely distributing AI, including via open models, is the best way to keep the technology in check. Amodei pointed out that institutions like the court system can decentralize power, while noting Anthropic has been in favor of policies that slow down frontier AI companies and also give smaller rivals an advantage. Still, he conceded that AI is structurally a technology that tends to concentrate power. But that's not because of regulation. Instead, he attributed it to AI scaling laws, referring to how a model's performance improves as resources used to build it increase. Open-weight models are a bit better but merely shift the concentration of power to those with the most computing capacity and chips. "By contrast I think the right 'rules of the road' can simultaneously (a) address AI's cyber/bio/alignment risks, (b) institutionally constrain the power of the frontier AI companies, and (c) leave room for open-weights models while also addressing the specific risks that they bring," Amodei wrote, adding that he supports creation of a FINRA-like entity and the Trump administration's stance on AI testing. Then he tackled his rhetoric about AI and denied that he has been overly negative, pointing to essays he's written that equally present the technology's risks and benefits. Social media clips, however, often characterize his statements as excessively gloomy to get clicks, Amodei added. To be sure, the Anthropic CEO famously predicted AI could wipe out 50% of white-collar jobs. But more recently, he toned down the warning and called AI a multiplier of output, not a destroyer of jobs. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has similarly pivoted his messaging, as both companies head for IPOs. In his X post, Amodei agreed that the public has a negative view of AI, which he considers a big problem, but didn't place the blame on himself or any other individual AI executive. "I think it is fundamentally a crisis of trust. I think that ordinary people don't trust companies, governments, or the tech industry and always suspect that we are cooking up some new way to screw them over," he explained. Such distrust has been around for decades, and a marketing campaign won't undo it, Amodei said, cautioning that an ad that says AI will cure cancer would likely be dismissed as deceptive. "The thing that will work is actually curing cancer," he added. "I think by far the most accurate criticism of AI companies including Anthropic is that we haven't yet delivered on our big promises to benefit the world." For its part, Anthropic is trying to improve trust by producing such results, namely by doing more in the fields of biology and medicine, according to Amodei. There are "early glimmers" of what could be incredible results, he teased. But until there are actual accomplishments, he vowed to avoid making empty promises and instead honestly address AI risks in the meantime. "Honesty is the right thing on the merits, and in terms of public credibility and trust it is no worse than, and may in fact be better than, an approach that ignores or distracts from risks which people instinctively understand are real," Amodei concluded.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei defends AI regulation, argues it can boost competition

It started with a comment from investor Gavin Baker on the All-In Podcast, which set off a public argument about Anthropic's ambitions, pulling in one of the top researchers in this field, Advanced Machine Intelligence chair Yann LeCunn, and a public essay from Amodei himself. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has pushed back against claims that regulating artificial intelligence (AI) would inevitably concentrate power in the hands of a few companies and governments, arguing that carefully designed rules could instead constrain frontier AI firms while giving smaller competitors more room to catch up. It started with a comment from investor Gavin Baker on the All-In Podcast, which set off a public argument about Anthropic's ambitions, pulling in one of the top researchers in this field, Advanced Machine Intelligence chair Yann LeCunn, and a public essay from Amodei himself. Baker said on the podcast that he had heard from someone that Amodei believes Anthropic "might be the only private company in the world at some point," with just Anthropic and governments left standing. Baker joked he would "take the under" on that happening. Co-host David Sacks said the idea sounded "hubristic" and compared it to "SBF land", referring to disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. Sholto Douglas, an Anthropic researcher, shot back on X. "Whoever he heard this from is lying," he wrote, adding that the claim doesn't fit with what critics say about the company -- that Anthropic has no real competitive edge. Posting a screenshot of Amodei's essay, Douglas pointed out that the CEO himself wrote that economic power getting concentrated in one company is exactly what worries Anthropic. "The AI market is literally the most competitive market in the world right now -- every single one of the largest companies on earth is singularly focused on getting you smarter, cheaper models. If it all works out, we'll succeed in reducing the cost of everything to the cost of energy. This is awesome, but it threatens a lot of people's old moats. They are frightened," he wrote. Baker responded, thanking Douglas for the clarification, but said that Amodei's own public warnings about AI's dangers are what fuel this kind of rumour in the first place. He framed the real debate as a choice between two philosophies, either concentrating AI's power in a few trusted hands through regulation, or spreading it out widely. Baker sided with the second option, arguing "no human has ever been able to take over the world," so a wide field of competing AIs should keep any one system in check. Amodei responded to Baker, thanking him for "an especially thoughtful exchange" and conceding that AI companies, including Anthropic, have not yet delivered on the big promises they made about transforming the world. LeCun, jumped in saying that he has spent a decade arguing that AI must be "widely available, shared, and open," comparing it to the printing press and the internet. He sided with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's recent essay, which warned that concentrating power in one company is risky, no matter how well-intentioned.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei rejects claim AI regulation would concentrate power

Responding to a debate sparked by comments from investor Gavin Baker, Amodei said the choice between concentrating AI power through regulation and distributing it widely was a "false choice". He argued that fair institutional processes can constrain corporate power and protect individuals, while regulation can be designed to place greater burdens on the most advanced AI companies than on smaller challengers. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has pushed back against claims that regulating artificial intelligence would inevitably concentrate power in the hands of a few companies and governments, arguing that carefully designed rules could instead constrain frontier AI firms while giving smaller competitors more room to catch up. Responding to a debate sparked by comments from investor Gavin Baker, Amodei said the choice between concentrating AI power through regulation and distributing it widely was a "false choice". He argued that fair institutional processes can constrain corporate power and protect individuals, while regulation can be designed to place greater burdens on the most advanced AI companies than on smaller challengers. Amodei pointed to Anthropic's support for California's SB53 and its earlier position on SB1047, saying both approaches exempted companies below specified revenue or model-training thresholds. He also said Anthropic has backed testing frameworks that impose more rigorous requirements on frontier models than on less advanced systems, which he believes could benefit challengers, including open-weight AI developers. The comments came in response to Baker's argument that AI's risks should potentially be addressed by distributing AI capabilities widely rather than concentrating them through regulation. Baker had also argued that Amodei's public warnings about AI risks could contribute to regulatory pressure and restrictions on data centres, while reducing the likelihood of AI delivering broad benefits. Amodei, however, said AI is structurally prone to concentrating power because of the economics and computing requirements associated with scaling advanced models. While open-weight models can help distribute capabilities, he argued they are not sufficient because access to large amounts of computing power and chips remains concentrated among frontier AI companies and major hardware providers. He also rejected the suggestion that his public messaging on AI has been disproportionately negative. Amodei said he has sought to balance warnings about risks with the technology's potential benefits, pointing to his essay Machines of Loving Grace, which explored AI's potential to transform healthcare and biology. He argued that the bigger problem facing the industry is a crisis of public trust and that companies should earn confidence by delivering tangible benefits rather than relying on optimistic marketing. Amodei said he remains supportive of pre-deployment testing for frontier models and testing of open-weight models as they approach the frontier, while also expressing support for Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis' proposal for a FINRA-like AI oversight body.

AI companies have not delivered on big promises, says Anthropic CEO

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has admitted that AI companies, including his own, have failed to deliver on the ambitious promises they made about transforming the world for the better. Responding to investor Gavin Baker over a post on social media platform X, Amodei said this is the fairest criticism that can be levelled at the industry and one he accepts applies to Anthropic, too. He made the comment while defending his company against separate accusations that its regulatory positions concentrate power and that its public messaging on AI is overly negative. Amodei argued that real progress, not marketing, is what will restore public trust in artificial intelligence. He said Anthropic is speeding up work in biology and medicine and expects meaningful results in the years ahead. The exchange began after Baker, discussing Anthropic on a podcast, said he had been told Amodei privately suggested Anthropic could end up being the only private company left in the world, with only governments remaining alongside it. Fellow investor David Sacks called the remark hubristic, and Baker said he would discourage Amodei from repeating it. Baker also argued that Amodei's warnings about AI's dangers were consistent with a broader case for concentrating the technology under a few regulated firms rather than distributing it widely and said this approach had failed to win the regulatory outcome Amodei wanted. Amodei took up the exchange on social media to respond to these points directly. Also read: ChatGPT gets Google Drive support, reservation search and other new features: Here is what is new Amodei rejected the idea that AI rules must either give more power to a few big companies or make AI widely available to everyone. He said Anthropic supports rules that put stricter requirements on leading AI companies like itself, while making things easier for smaller companies. He pointed to California's SB 53 and safety testing rules being discussed with US regulators as examples. In the X comment directed to Baker, Amodei disputed claims that he focuses too heavily on AI's dangers. He clarified that his public output has been evenly split between highlighting risks and benefits, citing his essay 'Machines of Loving Grace', which argues AI could help cure most diseases within five to ten years. Moreover, he added that the social media clips shared widely often make his comments seem more negative than they actually were. Aside from that, he addressed why the public remains sceptical of AI, saying it stems from a broader, long-standing distrust of companies and institutions rather than from warnings issued by AI leaders. He pointed out that a polished marketing campaign would not fix that problem. Also read: Teen accused of killing mother and brother reportedly used ChatGPT before the murders He mentioned that his father died from hepatitis C a few years before effective treatments became available. Because of this, Amodei feels a strong personal need to help AI achieve real medical breakthroughs. Lastly, he said Anthropic will publicise any genuine results loudly once they arrive but will not make hollow claims in the meantime.