Anthropic has formally warned investors that its technology may pose “existential risks to humanity” in a long-awaited initial public offering prospectus circulated with a small group of partners in recent days.
The nearly $1 trillion AI start-up led by Dario Amodei devoted almost a third of its lengthy S-1 filing to detailing “risk factors,” including the potential of increasingly advanced AI models to manipulate, blackmail and exhibit other unpredictable behaviors.
Anthropic outlined more prosaic risks, including the extreme concentration of its customer base, with close to a quarter of revenue last year coming from just two clients, according to people familiar with the filing.
The extraordinary warnings in its risk disclosures add to the challenge faced by public market investors in valuing the leading US AI group when it launches what is expected to be the most highly valued IPO of all time.
The Claude maker also provided investors with a clearer picture of the challenging economics of building state-of-the-art AI models ahead of the listing, expected on the Nasdaq this autumn.
Anthropic said it planned to spend $518 billion on cloud, computing and infrastructure obligations in the coming years to support its rapid growth.
The AI lab’s backers are confident Anthropic can list at a valuation of more than $2 trillion, more than double the level achieved in its last funding round in May and beyond the $1.78 trillion achieved by Elon Musk’s SpaceX in June. They point to its extraordinary growth rate to justify their bullishness.
But concerns about the risks posed by AI now threaten to dim that optimism after current and former Anthropic staff came out with public warnings that runaway AI could end humanity within a decade.
Amodei told the UN Security Council last week that AI could threaten humankind and was “the most important global security issue facing the world today.
The Anthropic chief has this month led public calls for “pacing the frontier” of AI development. His arch-rival at OpenAI, Sam Altman, along with Musk, backed Amodei’s proposals for industry co-operation to slow development and enhance safety measures, in a rare moment of unity.
Safety concerns have increased following a series of high-profile cyber security incidents in which AI “agents” have breached external systems. Last week, OpenAI revealed its tools had hacked “dozens” of external sites, including governments.
The ChatGPT maker on Monday scrapped plans to release its newest model next month, citing safety concerns.
Anthropic’s prospectus also revealed details of its prior financial performance and governance arrangements, which were first reported by Reuters and confirmed to the FT by multiple people who have seen the filing.
Anthropic declined to comment.
The company recorded an operating loss of more than $8 billion last year as it increased spending on computing power, Anthropic told investors. Its revenue jumped 12-fold to almost $4.6 billion last year. But mounting costs for computing resources to train and run its models pushed operating expenses to almost $13 billion.
The group has agreed deals to secure computing power from partners including Google, SpaceX, and several smaller companies.
Anthropic’s spending and revenue have both increased sharply this year. Revenue in the second quarter of this year was $11.5 billion, and it is on course for its second consecutive quarter of operating profit, albeit on an adjusted basis.
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