Anthropic Versus Anthropic

Anthropic is a frustrating company. Sometimes it will do things I greatly appreciate, including at substantial cost. They have taken bold stands, have a unique governance structure and have hired and worked to establish a relatively strong (but I think still inadequate) safety culture. Other times, it will do things that are deeply disappointing. It produces very good models. That too is not entirely a good thing. One can both be the best given the alternatives, and insufficient to meet the moment. Ultimately, what you think about Anthropic depends on what parts you care about most, and what you think would be sufficient. Anthropic is great if you think the problems are important and difficult, but within the range of what Anthropic’s approaches can solve. If you think we mainly need operational excellence and caring about safety and the future, then there are some non-excellent operations to fix but that goal seems doable for Anthropic. If you think the problems go well beyond that,…