June 6, 2025 News
Anthropic Adds National Security Expert to Governance Trust Amid Defense Market Push
Anthropic has appointed national security expert Richard Fontaine to its long-term benefit trust, which helps govern the company and elect board members. This appointment follows Anthropic's recent announcement of AI models for U.S. national security applications and reflects the company's broader push into defense contracts alongside partnerships with Palantir and AWS.
Skynet Chance (+0.01%): The appointment of a national security expert to Anthropic's governance structure suggests stronger institutional oversight and responsible development practices, which could marginally reduce risks of uncontrolled AI development.
Skynet Date (+0 days): This governance change doesn't significantly alter the pace of AI development or deployment, representing more of a structural adjustment than a fundamental change in development speed.
AGI Progress (+0.01%): Anthropic's expansion into national security applications indicates growing AI capabilities and market confidence in their models' sophistication. The defense sector's adoption suggests these systems are approaching more general-purpose utility.
AGI Date (+0 days): The focus on national security applications and defense partnerships may provide additional funding and resources that could modestly accelerate AI development timelines.
Anthropic Raises $3.5 Billion at $61.5 Billion Valuation, Expands Claude AI Platform
Anthropic raised $3.5 billion at a $61.5 billion valuation in March, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The AI startup has since launched a blog for its Claude models and reportedly partnered with Apple to power a new "vibe-coding" software platform.
Skynet Chance (+0.01%): The massive funding and high valuation accelerates Anthropic's AI development capabilities, though the company focuses on AI safety. The scale of investment increases potential for rapid capability advancement.
Skynet Date (+0 days): The substantial funding provides resources for faster AI development and scaling. However, Anthropic's emphasis on safety research may partially offset acceleration concerns.
AGI Progress (+0.02%): The $61.5 billion valuation and partnership with Apple demonstrates significant commercial validation and resources for advancing Claude's capabilities. Major funding enables accelerated research and development toward more general AI systems.
AGI Date (+0 days): The massive funding injection and Apple partnership provide substantial resources and market access that could accelerate AGI development timelines. The high valuation reflects investor confidence in rapid capability advancement.
EleutherAI Creates Massive Licensed Dataset to Train Competitive AI Models Without Copyright Issues
EleutherAI released The Common Pile v0.1, an 8-terabyte dataset of licensed and open-domain text developed over two years with multiple partners. The dataset was used to train two AI models that reportedly perform comparably to models trained on copyrighted data, addressing legal concerns in AI training practices.
Skynet Chance (-0.03%): Improved transparency and legal compliance in AI training reduces risks of rushed or secretive development that could lead to inadequate safety measures. Open datasets enable broader research community oversight of AI development practices.
Skynet Date (+0 days): While this promotes more responsible AI development, it doesn't significantly alter the overall pace toward potential AI risks. The dataset enables continued model training without fundamentally changing development speed.
AGI Progress (+0.02%): Demonstrates that high-quality AI models can be trained on legally compliant datasets, removing a potential barrier to AGI development. The 8TB dataset and competitive model performance show viable pathways for continued scaling without legal constraints.
AGI Date (+0 days): By resolving copyright issues that were causing decreased transparency and potential legal roadblocks, this could accelerate AI research progress. The availability of large, legally compliant datasets removes friction from the development process.
Lattice CEO Advocates for Human-Centric AI Implementation with Proper Oversight
Lattice CEO Sarah Franklin emphasizes the importance of maintaining human oversight and "checks and balances" when implementing AI in business operations. She argues that companies should prioritize people and customers over AI efficiency, stressing that trust, transparency, and human accountability are essential for successful AI adoption. Franklin believes that human connection cannot be replaced and that the most successful companies will be those that put people first while using AI as an augmentation tool rather than a replacement.
Skynet Chance (-0.08%): The emphasis on human oversight, accountability, and "checks and balances" for AI systems represents a positive approach to AI safety that could reduce risks of uncontrolled AI deployment. The focus on keeping humans "in service" rather than serving AI suggests better alignment practices.
Skynet Date (+0 days): The advocacy for human oversight and responsible AI implementation may slow down reckless AI deployment, potentially delaying scenarios where AI systems operate without adequate human control. However, the impact on overall timeline is modest as this represents one company's philosophy rather than industry-wide policy.
AGI Progress (-0.01%): While Lattice is developing AI agents for HR tasks, the focus is on narrow, human-supervised applications rather than advancing toward general intelligence. The emphasis on human oversight may actually constrain AI capability development in favor of safety.
AGI Date (+0 days): The conservative approach to AI development with heavy human oversight and narrow application focus may slow progress toward AGI by prioritizing safety and human control over pushing capability boundaries. However, this represents a single company's approach rather than a broad industry shift.
Industry Leaders Discuss AI Safety Challenges as Technology Becomes More Accessible
ElevenLabs' Head of AI Safety and Databricks co-founder participated in a discussion about AI safety and ethics challenges. The conversation covered issues like deepfakes, responsible AI deployment, and the difficulty of defining ethical boundaries in AI development.
Skynet Chance (-0.03%): Industry focus on AI safety and ethics discussions suggests increased awareness of risks and potential mitigation efforts. However, the impact is minimal as this represents dialogue rather than concrete safety implementations.
Skynet Date (+0 days): Safety discussions and ethical considerations may introduce minor delays in AI deployment timelines as companies adopt more cautious approaches. The focus on keeping "bad actors at bay" suggests some deceleration in unrestricted AI advancement.
AGI Progress (0%): This discussion focuses on safety and ethics rather than technical capabilities or breakthroughs that would advance AGI development. No impact on core AGI progress is indicated.
AGI Date (+0 days): Increased focus on safety and ethical considerations may slightly slow AGI development pace as resources are allocated to safety measures. However, the impact is minimal as this represents industry discussion rather than binding regulations.