Anthropic veterans buying remote land as AI hedge, WSJ says
The Wall Street Journal reports some of Anthropic's earliest employees have discussed relocating to remote land or government facilities in case AI development goes catastrophically wrong.
Some of Anthropic's earliest and longest-serving employees have discussed buying remote land as a contingency in case "AI goes awry," the Wall Street Journal reported, as relayed by The Decoder. The plans reportedly came up during company dinners, where employees discussed relocating to the desert to work from government facilities.
The Journal did not name specific employees, locations or completed purchases, according to The Decoder's account of the report. The details of any land bought so far are not confirmed.
The report ties the discussions to a network with intellectual roots in Eliezer Yudkowsky's mid-2000s warnings about uncontrolled AI. It says the same group previously worried about other existential risks, including asteroids and supervolcanoes, before AI became its focus.
Anthropic has not commented publicly on the report. The Decoder's write-up, the version of the story available without a subscription, does not say how many employees are involved or cite any on the record.