Risks spelled out for Anthropic investors include blowback from runaway AI

Any time a company looks to start selling shares on Wall Street, it’s required to disclose potential risks to investors. In the case of artificial intelligence giant Anthropic, that has included the possibility that its products could threaten nothing less than humanity itself. The risks laid out by the San Francisco company in its filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission included discussion of bad actors potentially using AI models to build deadly weapons or the technology itself going rogue with untold consequences. Of the 335 pages outlining Anthropic’s finances, executive compensation, dividend policy and the like, 93 pages are devoted to “risk factors” — the things that could hurt potential shareholders’ investments. Rival SpaceX’s listed risk factors, in comparison, took up 38 out of more than 250 pages. In selling itself to investors, Anthropic presents its own initial public offering as a step toward mitigating the risks it believes AI poses. “To