“[On Anthropic Lifetime NDAs & Non-Disparagements]”, 2024-06-30 ():
I am confident, on the basis of private information I can’t share, that Anthropic has asked at least some employees to sign similar non-disparagement agreements that are covered by non-disclosure agreements as OpenAI did.
Or to put things into more plain terms:
I am confident that Anthropic has offered at least one employee substantial financial incentive to promise to never say anything bad about Anthropic, or anything that might negatively affects its business, and to never tell anyone about their commitment to do so.
I am not aware of Anthropic doing anything like withholding vested equity the way OpenAI did, though I think the effect on discourse is similarly bad.
I of course think this is quite sad and a bad thing for a leading AI capability company to do, especially one that bills itself on being held accountable by its employees and that claims to prioritize safety in its plans.
Hey all, Anthropic cofounder [Sam McCandlish] here. I wanted to clarify Anthropic’s position on non-disparagement agreements:
We have never tied non-disparagement agreements to vested equity: this would be highly unusual. Employees or former employees never risked losing their vested equity for criticizing the company.
We historically included standard non-disparagement terms by default in severance agreements, and in some non-US employment contracts. We’ve since recognized that this routine use of non-disparagement agreements, even in these narrow cases, conflicts with our mission. Since June 1st we’ve been going through our standard agreements and removing these terms.
Anyone who has signed a non-disparagement agreement with Anthropic is free to state that fact (and we regret that some previous agreements were unclear on this point). If someone signed a non-disparagement agreement in the past and wants to raise concerns about safety at Anthropic, we welcome that feedback and will not enforce the non-disparagement agreement.
In other words—we’re not here to play games with AI safety using legal contracts. Anthropic’s whole reason for existing is to increase the chance that AI goes well, and spur a race to the top on AI safety.
Some other examples of things we’ve needed to adjust from the standard corporate boilerplate to ensure compatibility with our mission: (1) replacing standard shareholder governance with the Long Term Benefit Trust and (2) supplementing standard risk management with the Responsible Scaling Policy. And internally, we have an anonymous RSP non-compliance reporting line so that any employee can raise concerns about issues like this without any fear of retaliation.
Please keep up the pressure on us and other AI developers: standard corporate best practices won’t cut it when the stakes are this high. Our goal is to set a new standard for governance in AI development. This includes fostering open dialogue, prioritizing long-term safety, making our safety practices transparent, and continuously refining our practices to align with our mission.