Anthropic pledges shares for public good
Anthropic, the developer of Claude, says roughly 20% of its shares will be dedicated to the public good through a new fund and existing pledges by its founders and employees, reports a Qazinform News Agency correspondent.
In its announcement, the company said the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund would initially receive 5% of its shares, subject to stockholder approval.
For every 50% increase in the company’s value above a set baseline, the board can allocate an additional 2% to the fund at its discretion.
The combined total includes earlier commitments by Anthropic’s co-founders to donate 80% of their equity holdings. Approximately half of employees also participate in a program under which the company matches their equity donation pledges.
“We are instead directing that equity to the public benefit,” Anthropic said, contrasting the arrangement with escalating executive compensation awards.
The wholly owned fund could support nonprofit organizations, direct distributions to specific populations and measures addressing AI’s impact on workers.
Anthropic said none of the fund’s equity would be used for lobbying or political donations in the United States or abroad.
Further details on governance and valuation milestones will be published in the coming months.
Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that Anthropic had warned that small artificial intelligence models could be months away from replicating themselves across internet-connected consumer devices without relying on data centers.