> One applicant — who spoke to Axios on the condition of anonymity for fear of hurting future job opportunities — recalled being asked how they would feel if the company someday abandoned its AI ambitions for safety reasons, and that decision sent the stock to zero.
Is that a scoop? I thought that was a well known thing with Anthropic interview process. They were very transparent about it beforehand from what I remember.
On HN I’ve said things very critical of the company but that’s really not one of them, overall they had a pretty good (but intense and time consuming) interview process. I don’t understand the value of that article
It would be a decent interview question if such a large portion of compensation did not come from equity.
Otherwise it's basically the same as asking how someone would feel if all the sudden they lost 50% or more of their wealth. No one feels okay about that, except maybe the delusional few.
The issue is that Anthropic is just one company and China doesn't care in the slightest - so it's an entirely moot point and almost narcissistic (on Anthropic's part) to believe that they can have any impact whatsoever on this situation.
The irony is of course that China is going so fast because of Anthropic, by diluting their models and learning from them. would make for a fantastic Greek tragedy if we weren’t talking about something that impacts the entire world economy and societies
This is why I don't expect Anthropic to stop, and I don't expect the value of the company to go to zero.
But the question is conditional on them deciding to, which (to the extent you trust Anthropic leadership which they're probably also filtering for in interviews) is conditional on believing that a decision that sent their stock to 0 would have a real impact.
It’s becoming trendy to hate on Anthropic these days but their AI security record speaks for itself for years. Every AI safety benchmark/paper I’ve seen since sonnet became viable placed them far ahead of all other providers - marketing ploy or not (ala Apple “privacy” focus) the company has always had as part of their DNA thus far.
This paternalistic "safety" "DNA" is ultimately just marketing and a market capture strategy.
1) Propagandize the "dangers" of AI, stage a few incidents, talk up the risks ("it bypassed our most stringent checks! it's so smart!")
2) Build some thin veneer of "safety" and industry "self-policing."
3) Lobby for AI safety "regulation" - which you've conveniently already got an answer to! Be sure to make the regulations expensive, onerous, and impossible for foreign organizations to comply with.
I don’t think so, I think Amodei and the early employees do believe what they say. It’s still worth criticizing but I don’t think it’s as simple as „just marketing“. But with the company growing and their insane valuation it’s clear it’s morphing into something else
"Damn kids today, working for their money, not mine!" Since Dario believes in the mission, he should give away all his stock and work for a regular employee salary
The worst is that I don't believe a single second that Amodei and his crew are not greed motivated in the end. Otherwise his company would be a lot different, more open, more open source, more available to help good cause without benefit.
What I see is more the god syndrome of persons that have are in power and have an edge. He can make the conditions so it is important for him to appear as a "divine leader", that is capable to "inspire others" with whatever is the right thing that it decides.
I'm quite sure that he will not tolerate debate still.
But obviously he will not see himself like that, but will be persuaded that he is a world changer and saving the world.
I hate these types of questions because they're not just selecting for people dedicated to the mission, they're also selecting for people who are convincing liars
I agree with the parent commenter – it's too on the nose.
If you were concerned about someone's character then you need to ask questions which really help you to understand who the person is – not questions which are easy to game by lying.
I'd argue asking something like someone's opinion on veganism is a better question because it might help you understand how the person thinks about the types of harms Anthropic are concerned about without being such an easy thing to lie about.
Obviously they could say "yeah, I think veganism is good", but someone who actually inhabited that view or was just conflicted about balancing meat consumption and the suffering of animals would probably answer with a lot more nuance that helps you understand how that person thinks about similar kinds of ethical concerns.
Isn't mostly any question not directly verifiable subject to that?
At least the more questions you ask a liar to pin them down the easier it is to eventually notice them tripping up.
I think what's inconceivable is that anyone thinks that these kinds of questions really work. The intersection of high-skilled people that can work there with low-awareness people that can't navigate these questions in a "politically correct" (for lack of a better term) way must be near 0.
"Oh, of course I wouldn't mind stopping if we decide that something is too dangerous to pursue. I think the mere fact that we'd get close to knowing how to do it would satisfy my curiosity. Plus, if we'd be close to it, I'd probably take some time to spend with my loved ones, as the competition would likely be close as well."
It's not hard to see these kinds of questions as more than kabuki theatre. I'd put them in the same vein as those "do you intend to perform any terrorists acts while in our country" questions you get while travelling.
This is such a good example of a straight forward question that achieves the exact opposite of its purpose. What do we want? Highly ethical people that are mission focused and willing to give up on economic upside for the mission. What are we going to get? Sociopaths who are perfectly happy lying to your face about their intentions, or sycophants who are going to tell you what you want to hear.
Do you know who has the best answer to a moral quandry they've had to navigate during their career? Liars! That's a really difficult question to answer if you're honest, it's a really easy question to answer if you're dishonest.
If you really want to pursue this strategy rather than setting up bullshit interview questions you could do something much more straight forward. Agree some standard of living that's acceptable for your employees - let's say 250k in the bay area. Give them that as cash comp, and everything else goes into a "fund" which gets paid out when specific milestones are achieved, as judged by some panel. Cure cancer? You all get 10% of your deferred comp.
If you want your employees to be prioritizing things other than stock price you can literally just encode that into your compensation strategy if you like!
Obviously no one would do that, because they don't actually want to give up the comp.
This is good advice. And if you don’t want to spend too much time reading about EA, imagine for yourself the inner dialogue of someone struggling with the tension between wanting to get really, really rich at any cost, and also really, really wanting other people to cherish them as a heroic-level Good Person, and also (this part is crucial) not have to sully their hands doing any actual hands-on good directly.
The ideal runs close to the output of Bill Gates’ PR machine.
> One applicant — who spoke to Axios on the condition of anonymity for fear of hurting future job opportunities — recalled being asked how they would feel if the company someday abandoned its AI ambitions for safety reasons, and that decision sent the stock to zero.
Is that a scoop? I thought that was a well known thing with Anthropic interview process. They were very transparent about it beforehand from what I remember.
On HN I’ve said things very critical of the company but that’s really not one of them, overall they had a pretty good (but intense and time consuming) interview process. I don’t understand the value of that article
It would be a decent interview question if such a large portion of compensation did not come from equity.
Otherwise it's basically the same as asking how someone would feel if all the sudden they lost 50% or more of their wealth. No one feels okay about that, except maybe the delusional few.
Personally I'd trade 50% of my wealth for a significantly large decrease in the chance that AI gets us all killed.
The issue is that Anthropic is just one company and China doesn't care in the slightest - so it's an entirely moot point and almost narcissistic (on Anthropic's part) to believe that they can have any impact whatsoever on this situation.
The irony is of course that China is going so fast because of Anthropic, by diluting their models and learning from them. would make for a fantastic Greek tragedy if we weren’t talking about something that impacts the entire world economy and societies
This is why I don't expect Anthropic to stop, and I don't expect the value of the company to go to zero.
But the question is conditional on them deciding to, which (to the extent you trust Anthropic leadership which they're probably also filtering for in interviews) is conditional on believing that a decision that sent their stock to 0 would have a real impact.
This reads to me like an "exploitability" metric more than anything.
I don't agree with some things Anthropic does but that is a cool thing.
Isn't the obvious response that they should offer a comparable comp package without any sort of stock aspect?
In my experience hype driven companies are very resistant to that even when equity/cash ratio offered is more sane.
I wasn't aware this was known information, but had I not, I would have assumed this was some 4D PR manoeuvre.
It’s becoming trendy to hate on Anthropic these days but their AI security record speaks for itself for years. Every AI safety benchmark/paper I’ve seen since sonnet became viable placed them far ahead of all other providers - marketing ploy or not (ala Apple “privacy” focus) the company has always had as part of their DNA thus far.
This paternalistic "safety" "DNA" is ultimately just marketing and a market capture strategy.
1) Propagandize the "dangers" of AI, stage a few incidents, talk up the risks ("it bypassed our most stringent checks! it's so smart!")
2) Build some thin veneer of "safety" and industry "self-policing."
3) Lobby for AI safety "regulation" - which you've conveniently already got an answer to! Be sure to make the regulations expensive, onerous, and impossible for foreign organizations to comply with.
4) Profit.
I don’t think so, I think Amodei and the early employees do believe what they say. It’s still worth criticizing but I don’t think it’s as simple as „just marketing“. But with the company growing and their insane valuation it’s clear it’s morphing into something else
"anonymity, for fear of hurting future job opportunities"
Ah yes, this screams morality. We're in good hands, folks!
"Damn kids today, working for their money, not mine!" Since Dario believes in the mission, he should give away all his stock and work for a regular employee salary
But what if someone else ends up making the world a better place better than they do?
I don't understand the problem with this question. I could barely discern the question in the article.
Or it could be posturing. Or it could be compensation negotiation.
How does the actual Anthropic internal culture compare to that of OpenAI?
The worst is that I don't believe a single second that Amodei and his crew are not greed motivated in the end. Otherwise his company would be a lot different, more open, more open source, more available to help good cause without benefit.
What I see is more the god syndrome of persons that have are in power and have an edge. He can make the conditions so it is important for him to appear as a "divine leader", that is capable to "inspire others" with whatever is the right thing that it decides. I'm quite sure that he will not tolerate debate still.
But obviously he will not see himself like that, but will be persuaded that he is a world changer and saving the world.
Presumably you're also greed motivated, because you don't work without benefit.
The difference is that most people don't make "Look at how altruistic we are! We care™" a key component of their marketing pitch.
I hate these types of questions because they're not just selecting for people dedicated to the mission, they're also selecting for people who are convincing liars
What’s the alternative? Selecting people without caring at all about their character?
I agree with the parent commenter – it's too on the nose.
If you were concerned about someone's character then you need to ask questions which really help you to understand who the person is – not questions which are easy to game by lying.
I'd argue asking something like someone's opinion on veganism is a better question because it might help you understand how the person thinks about the types of harms Anthropic are concerned about without being such an easy thing to lie about.
Obviously they could say "yeah, I think veganism is good", but someone who actually inhabited that view or was just conflicted about balancing meat consumption and the suffering of animals would probably answer with a lot more nuance that helps you understand how that person thinks about similar kinds of ethical concerns.
Isn't mostly any question not directly verifiable subject to that? At least the more questions you ask a liar to pin them down the easier it is to eventually notice them tripping up.
"Will you lie to get this job?"
Sounds like theyre actively hiring people to train the worst kind of AI
Is it that inconceivable to think that there are people who would be ok with stopping what they're doing when they realize it's harmful?
I think what's inconceivable is that anyone thinks that these kinds of questions really work. The intersection of high-skilled people that can work there with low-awareness people that can't navigate these questions in a "politically correct" (for lack of a better term) way must be near 0.
"Oh, of course I wouldn't mind stopping if we decide that something is too dangerous to pursue. I think the mere fact that we'd get close to knowing how to do it would satisfy my curiosity. Plus, if we'd be close to it, I'd probably take some time to spend with my loved ones, as the competition would likely be close as well."
It's not hard to see these kinds of questions as more than kabuki theatre. I'd put them in the same vein as those "do you intend to perform any terrorists acts while in our country" questions you get while travelling.
The question won't distinguish between both types of people, except for the bad liars.
This is such a good example of a straight forward question that achieves the exact opposite of its purpose. What do we want? Highly ethical people that are mission focused and willing to give up on economic upside for the mission. What are we going to get? Sociopaths who are perfectly happy lying to your face about their intentions, or sycophants who are going to tell you what you want to hear.
Do you know who has the best answer to a moral quandry they've had to navigate during their career? Liars! That's a really difficult question to answer if you're honest, it's a really easy question to answer if you're dishonest.
If you really want to pursue this strategy rather than setting up bullshit interview questions you could do something much more straight forward. Agree some standard of living that's acceptable for your employees - let's say 250k in the bay area. Give them that as cash comp, and everything else goes into a "fund" which gets paid out when specific milestones are achieved, as judged by some panel. Cure cancer? You all get 10% of your deferred comp.
If you want your employees to be prioritizing things other than stock price you can literally just encode that into your compensation strategy if you like!
Obviously no one would do that, because they don't actually want to give up the comp.
The candidates should read up on effective altruism before applying to this company.
If you don’t know what that is, then you won’t understand why Anthropic are asking those sort of questions.
This is good advice. And if you don’t want to spend too much time reading about EA, imagine for yourself the inner dialogue of someone struggling with the tension between wanting to get really, really rich at any cost, and also really, really wanting other people to cherish them as a heroic-level Good Person, and also (this part is crucial) not have to sully their hands doing any actual hands-on good directly.
The ideal runs close to the output of Bill Gates’ PR machine.
Shame that machine didn't manage to erase Epstein's emails.
Why are you so anti-anthropic? Hundreds of posts on hacker news decrying anthropic.
Admit it HN, you have sour grapes for not having a job at Anthropic/OpenAI.
I have no clue how to get my resume past their Claude ATS so it's kind of moot.
I was curious until I knew someone who worked for them. I can tell you that you couldn’t pay me enough now.