Bernie Moreno speaking at the Turning Point Action Conference in West Palm Beach, Florida, in July 2023
Republican senator Bernie Moreno has accused Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei of taking an “alarmist approach” to AI. He did so in a letter sent on Monday, ahead of Anthropic’s expected stock market listing. Axios first reported the letter.
“I do not understand how you can ask them to invest their hard-earned savings in Anthropic’s continued development while warning those same Americans that your product could ultimately lead to their extinction,” Moreno wrote.
The Ohio senator calls AI “super intelligence”, or SI, throughout the letter. That follows President Trump’s order for US agencies to rename the technology.
Coxon, Hubinger and Amodei
Moreno cited Jacob Coxon, the researcher who quit Anthropic in September and said AI companies were “gambling with our lives”. He also quoted Anthropic safety researcher Evan Hubinger, who put the chance that AI kills all humans within the next decade at more than 10%.
The letter quotes Amodei telling CNN that he agrees with Coxon “on far more than I disagree with him”. Moreno also wrote that Amodei has put the chance of SI going “really, really badly” at 25%. These statements show that Amodei’s “instinct is to wreak havoc on the public SI discourse”, the senator wrote. He said the “panic-inducing commentary” does not tell Americans how the technology can defend against the threats it warns about.
The IPO and China
Moreno wrote that investors are discussing a valuation for Anthropic of close to $2tn, about 42 times its revenue. Trading could start as soon as this month, he said. Anthropic’s IPO prospectus has already warned investors about risks from US government action.
The senator said the focus on worst-case outcomes risks crowding out debate on national security and on keeping the US, not China, in the lead. He called Amodei’s signature on the White House accord on super intelligence “a notable first step”.
“We must address the risks associated with frontier SI. Doing so does not require halting its development or surrendering American technological dominance,” Moreno wrote.
The letter is the latest from an ally of President Trump aimed at Amodei, Axios reported.
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