Anthropic said it will put $200 million into an Economic Futures Research Fund to test policies that could blunt AI-driven labor disruptions, while CEO Dario Amodei urged Washington to prepare for scenarios of higher and prolonged unemployment. In an essay, Amodei floated options ranging from pro-employment incentives to universal basic income financed by taxes on companies benefiting from AI or higher capital gains levies. The company also plans a $150 million national fellowship to channel AI benefits to communities.
The move follows OpenAI’s call to “widely share” AI gains and Sam Altman’s discussions with Sen. Bernie Sanders about a public wealth fund model. President Donald Trump said he will meet AI executives on “giving back” to the public and recently signed an executive order enabling pre-release national-security reviews of advanced models. Anthropic’s policy blueprint proposes FAA-style testing and the authority to block high-risk systems, with escalating responses tied to unemployment thresholds. The initiative comes as Anthropic and OpenAI weigh IPOs and as policymakers debate how to balance rapid AI deployment with broad-based economic support.
Related articles:
— UK AI Safety Institute
— Robots and Jobs: Evidence from US Labor Markets (NBER)
— Stanford Basic Income Lab
— World Development Report 2019: The Changing Nature of Work
