Anthropic official says she’s hearing from her mom about AI safety

AI executives are hearing from just about everyone about AI safety. “My mom has entered the group chat as an AI safety advocate,” Anthropic’s head of public policy, Sarah Heck, said during a live interview Wednesday at Politico’s Decoded Summit in Washington. “This moment has really seized lots of folks.” The AI safety conversation has exploded since former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon went public with his resignation and his view that Anthropic and OpenAI are “gambling with our lives.” Other current and former Anthropic employees also expressed agreement with Coxon’s view that people working on AI fear the technology could wipe out humanity.

Heck said Capitol Hill is also wrapped up in this moment.

She said it seems like “every minute” she is getting a call about a new lawmaker introducing AI-related legislation. “There has been a proliferation of bills in the past two weeks,” she said.

The safety conversation isn’t new to Anthropic, Heck said.

She said those concerns were central to why CEO Dario Amodei and six other cofounders famously left OpenAI. “Safety has been the core of who we are from the very beginning,” she said.

Heck said that the current moment is just the beginning of where the conversation could go. “This is going to be a sustained conversation,” she said. “I anticipate that there are going to be many more moments.”