Amodei Pushes Back on Safety Rollback Criticism, Says Changes Improve Effectiveness

According to AI TIMES, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said on October 21 that, in response to criticism of a retreat in AI safety policy, the company has given up business opportunities for safety and that changes to its responsible scaling policy are not a loosening of principles but an adjustment to improve effectiveness. He pointed to the company’s choices over the past year and argued that it must remain among the leaders in the frontier race in order to raise safety standards across the industry. At the heart of the controversy is how to tell whether a company’s changes to its own safety rules are reasonable improvements or a weakening of responsibility. Anthropic said it has prioritized risk control over commercial gain by strengthening biological safeguards, delaying model releases, and restricting services tied to certain countries. It also said the existing policy required less important procedures while falling short on responses to core risks, and that it has now revised the policy to strengthen risk reporting, roadmap disclosures, and external review. It acknowledged mistakes in its policy announcements and external communications, but said the debate ultimately leaves open the task of proving credibility through transparency, independent verification, and actual risk reduction.