Commentary: Anthropic says its goal is to help humanity, but you may not want to believe it
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Set us as preferred Anthropic, the big artificial intelligence lab, wants everyone to understand that it’s deeply devoted to developing advanced AI “for the benefit of humanity.” We know this because it has placed this principle front-and-center in the preliminary prospectus for its upcoming initial public stock offering, which was made public on Monday.It’s what Anthropic defines as its “Company Purpose.” The term, always capitalized, appears 42 times in the 318-page document, so it must mean something important.
On the other hand, Anthropic needs you to know that its work may not actually turn out to be boon for humanity.“We cannot assure you that we will achieve our Company Purpose or that the expected positive impact...will be realized,” it acknowledges in the prospectus.
Despite massive investments and widespread hype around artificial intelligence, the technology has delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech.— Torsten Slok, Apollo Global ManagementThat’s not all that the company is asking prospective investors to take on faith.Its financial success is dependent on its revenues handily outpacing its expenses, which already run into tens of billions on an annualized basis, mostly spent on acquiring chips and computing resources needed to build out its AI ambitions.
Common shareholders will have to have faith that Anthropic’s seven founders will always do the right thing for humanity, because the share ownership is set up so that public shareholders will have zero voice in how the company is run.More on that in a moment.Commentary on economics and more from a Pulitzer Prize winner.
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