Luke Muehlhauser explains he resigned from the Anthropic board because there was a conflict with his work at Open Philanthropy and its policy advocacy. I do not see that as a conflict. If being a board member at Anthropic was a conflict with advocating for strong regulations or considered by them a ‘bad look,’ then that potentially says something is very wrong at Anthropic as well. Yes, there is the ‘behind the scenes’ story but one not behind the scenes must be skeptical.
I also do not really understand why the COI was considered so strong or unmanageable that Luke felt he needed to resign. Note also that my impression is that OP funds very few “applied policy” efforts, and my impression is that the ones they do fund are mostly focusing on things that Anthropic supports (e.g., science of evals, funding for NIST). I also don’t get the vibe that Luke leaving the board is coinciding with any significant changes to OP’s approach to governance or policy.
More than that, I think Luke plausibly… chose the wrong role? I realize most board members are very part time, but I think the board of Anthropic was the more important assignment.
I agree with this (I might be especially inclined to believe this because I haven’t been particularly impressed with the output from OP’s governance team, but I think even if I believed it were doing a fairly good job under Luke’s leadership, I would still think that the Anthropic board role were more valuable. On top of that, it would’ve been relatively easy for OP to replace Luke with someone who has a very similar set of beliefs.)
Ah, gotcha– are there more details about which board seats the LTBT will control//how board seats will be added? According to GPT, the current board members are Dario, Daniela, Yasmin, and Jay. (Presumably Dario and Daniela’s seats will remain untouched and will not be the ones in LTBT control.)
Also gotcha– removed the claim that he was replaced by Jay.
There will be five board seats. Dario and Yasmin are the two seats that will always be controlled by stockholders. Jay was chosen by LTBT. Luke’s (currently empty) seat will go to LTBT in July. Daniela’s seat will go to LTBT in November. (I put this together from TIME and Vox, iirc; see also Anthropic’s Certificate of Incorporation.)
I also do not really understand why the COI was considered so strong or unmanageable that Luke felt he needed to resign. Note also that my impression is that OP funds very few “applied policy” efforts, and my impression is that the ones they do fund are mostly focusing on things that Anthropic supports (e.g., science of evals, funding for NIST). I also don’t get the vibe that Luke leaving the board is coinciding with any significant changes to OP’s approach to governance or policy.
I agree with this (I might be especially inclined to believe this because I haven’t been particularly impressed with the output from OP’s governance team, but I think even if I believed it were doing a fairly good job under Luke’s leadership, I would still think that the Anthropic board role were more valuable. On top of that, it would’ve been relatively easy for OP to replace Luke with someone who has a very similar set of beliefs.)
I think Luke’s seat was going to be controlled by the LTBT starting in July anyway. And he wasn’t replaced by Jay; that was independent.
Ah, gotcha– are there more details about which board seats the LTBT will control//how board seats will be added? According to GPT, the current board members are Dario, Daniela, Yasmin, and Jay. (Presumably Dario and Daniela’s seats will remain untouched and will not be the ones in LTBT control.)
Also gotcha– removed the claim that he was replaced by Jay.
There will be five board seats. Dario and Yasmin are the two seats that will always be controlled by stockholders. Jay was chosen by LTBT. Luke’s (currently empty) seat will go to LTBT in July. Daniela’s seat will go to LTBT in November. (I put this together from TIME and Vox, iirc; see also Anthropic’s Certificate of Incorporation.)