I’d have more confidence in Anthropic’s governance if the board or LTBT had some fulltime independent members who weren’t employees. IMO labs should consider paying a fulltime salary but no equity to board members, through some kind of mechanism where the money is still there and paid for X period of time in the future, even if the lab dissolved, so no incentive to avoid actions that would cost the lab. Board salaries could maybe be pegged to some level of technical employee salary, so that technical experts could take on board roles. Boards full of busy people really can’t do their job of checking whether the organization is fullfilling its stated mission, and IMO this is one of the most important jobs in the world right now. Also, fulltime board members would have fewer conflicts of interest outside of the lab (since they won’t be in some other fulltime job that might conflict).
I’d have more confidence in Anthropic’s governance if the board or LTBT had some fulltime independent members who weren’t employees. IMO labs should consider paying a fulltime salary but no equity to board members, through some kind of mechanism where the money is still there and paid for X period of time in the future, even if the lab dissolved, so no incentive to avoid actions that would cost the lab. Board salaries could maybe be pegged to some level of technical employee salary, so that technical experts could take on board roles. Boards full of busy people really can’t do their job of checking whether the organization is fullfilling its stated mission, and IMO this is one of the most important jobs in the world right now. Also, fulltime board members would have fewer conflicts of interest outside of the lab (since they won’t be in some other fulltime job that might conflict).