Dive Brief:
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is pressing artificial intelligence developer Anthropic for answers to questions related to the safety of its technology and other details ahead of the company’s planned initial public offering.
- In a Wednesday letter to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Warren cited Anthropic’s warnings that advanced AI could pose “catastrophic or existential risks to humanity.” Among other questions, she asked how the company plans to mitigate AI risks such as losing control of systems, economic disruption, and misuse of the technology for cyberattacks and bioterrorism.
- “I believe the risks presented by this technology demand greater scrutiny before they become intertwined with the public capital markets, which could further escalate both public safety and systemic financial risks,” Warren, the ranking member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, wrote in the letter. She requested answers from Amodei by Nov. 3.
Dive Insight:
Reports of incidents involving rogue AI models are on the rise, sounding alarms on Capitol Hill and prompting a broader debate about whether the technology’s development should be slowed to allow more time to assess safety risks and strengthen safeguards.
On Sunday, Axios reported that Anthropic’s Claude had bypassed a paywall to access Georgia’s aggregate vote-count data during an internal statistics project, without human authorization.
Warren’s letter follows Anthropic’s Monday announcement that it had filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed IPO of its Class A common stock. Anthropic plans to list the shares on Nasdaq under the ticker ANT. The company has not yet disclosed how many shares it plans to offer or set a price range.
Anthropic reported $16.3 billion in revenue for the first half of 2026, representing a year-over-year growth rate of 1,300%.
“We do not expect our revenue will continue to grow at comparable rates, and we cannot assure you that it will continue to grow at all,” the company said in its SEC filing. For the six-month period, Anthropic reported a net loss of nearly $81 billion, while operating expenses continued to outpace revenue.
Meanwhile, OpenAI has delayed a planned IPO amid escalating concerns over the potential dangers of AI. CEO Sam Altman said in September that the company would not go public in 2026, citing the work still needed on AI safety.
Both Amodei and Altman have joined calls for slowing down the pace of AI development and have offered to work with policymakers on standards for the industry.
In her letter, Warren asked whether Amodei believes Anthropic’s AI models pose an existential threat to humanity, as the company’s registration statement warns. She also asked what safeguards the company’s leadership is implementing to prevent autonomous cyberattacks, biological weapons development and other dangerous uses of AI.
The senator warned that the company’s size and potential share-price volatility could affect broader markets, particularly given its financial connections to major technology companies.
“I am deeply troubled by the risks raised by Anthropic itself and question how it can act in a manner consistent with its stated public benefit and related fiduciary duties under Delaware law without mitigating these risks to humanity,” Warren said.
Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Warren’s letter and the Axios report.
