Dario Amodei left his position as VP of Research at OpenAI to co-found Anthropic with a focus on AI safety research. At Anthropic, he has championed constitutional AI and other interpretability approaches that attempt to make AI systems more transparent and controllable. Amodei represents a pragmatic position in AI development: continue building capable systems while investing heavily in safety research. His essay "Machines of Loving Grace" outlines an optimistic vision where powerful AI could solve disease, poverty, and other civilizational challenges within a decade. Anthropic under his leadership has produced both capable AI assistants and significant safety research, demonstrating these goals need not conflict.
Key contributions
- Co-founded Anthropic with focus on AI safety
- Developed constitutional AI approach
- Led scaling research at OpenAI before departure
- Advocates for powerful AI deployed responsibly
Quotes (1)
“One of my main reasons for focusing on risks is that they are the only thing standing between us and what I see as a fundamentally positive future. I think that most people are underestimating just how radical the upside of AI could be, just as I think most people are underestimating how bad the risks could be.”
Machines of Loving Grace · 2024