Anthropic pledges $200 million to research AI's economic impact as CEO
suggests job loss solutions
[June 11, 2026] By
KAITLYN HUAMANI
Anthropic on Wednesday joined growing calls for the artificial
intelligence industry to find ways to cushion people from the
technology's disruptions, announcing an initial $200 million investment
to research AI's impact on jobs and the economy.
Alongside new policy proposals from the maker of the Claude chatbot,
Anthropic CEO and co-founder Dario Amodei published an essay on his
personal website that expanded on his position that the government
should promise economic support for those financially impacted by AI.
The technology could produce much larger disruptions to the labor market
than previous technological advancements, Amodei wrote, and those
disruptions could last longer.
“The key challenge in such a world won’t be incentivizing growth, but
finding a way for everyone to share in the benefits,” Amodei wrote.
The announcement comes on the heels of Anthropic rival OpenAI on Monday
outlining goals that included ensuring gains from the technology are
“widely shared.” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently met with Sen. Bernie
Sanders to discuss a plan for the public to take an ownership stake in
artificial intelligence companies like OpenAI, using their stock to
create a public wealth fund that would spread the fortune generated by
AI behemoths.
In the Oval Office on Wednesday, President Donald Trump told reporters
that he will soon meet with executives from several leading AI companies
to discuss “giving back” to the public.
"We’re talking about giving back something to the public, and if we do
that, the public will become very rich,” Trump said. “I think they’ll do
that, and I think it’ll make it very popular.”
In his essay, Amodei said he has warned of job displacement not because
he is “trying to be a ‘prophet of doom’” but because he wants “both
policymakers and the private sector to have the best chance to adapt and
respond.” He proposed better data collection to track AI job
displacement, pro-employment policy incentives to slow or reduce
displacement and “mechanisms such as universal basic income” if job
displacement more permanently drives down labor demand.
That universal basic income could be financed through taxes on "relevant
companies” or by raising the capital gains tax, Amodei wrote.
Scant details were available Wednesday about the $200 million commitment
from Anthropic, but the company said it will go to what it calls an
Economic Futures Research Fund that will back research trials and
“program evaluation” on public policies it deems promising. The company
is also establishing a $150 million national fellowship program it says
will help early-career professionals “extend the benefits of AI to
communities across America.”
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Dario Amodei, CEO & Co-Founder of Anthropic, speaks on a panel
at the convening of the International Network of AI Safety
Institutes at the Golden Gate Club at the Presidio in San Francisco,
Nov. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
 Anthropic and OpenAI each recently
announced they were moving toward initial public offerings of
shares, following Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, which is
pitching itself as an AI-focused space company as it prepares to go
public.
The economic policy framework Anthropic proposed Wednesday set
recommendations for how the U.S. government could respond to three
levels of economic disruption caused by AI: one in which the
national unemployment rate reaches 5%, 10% and an unspecified,
“unprecedented” level. The latest unemployment rate, reported last
week, was 4.3%.
In the “unprecedented” scenario, the company wrote that more
permanent support will be necessary, and it listed several ways to
generate and share revenue broadly, including basic income,
sovereign wealth models and equity-sharing mechanisms. This would be
“novel economic territory,” the company wrote.
The company's proposals also outlined several suggestions for
mitigating safety and security risks. Anthropic is known for its
emphasis on safety and building reliable, “steerable” AI systems,
with Amodei and its co-founders splitting off from OpenAI to form
the new company in 2021.
The proposals add that the government should be able to “block or
deter” the rollout of AI models that “pose a significant risk of
catastrophic harms.”
Amodei wrote that AI regulations should match the rigor of Federal
Aviation Administration regulations in that AI models would be
required to go through technical testing and auditing like
airplanes. They wouldn’t be released if they didn’t meet high safety
standards.
Last week, Trump signed an executive order on AI oversight that
established a framework for the government to vet the national
security risks of the most advanced AI systems for up to a month
before their public release.
Amodei added existing regulations for aircraft, automobiles and
drugs should serve as models for regulating AI. They are all
“powerful technologies essential to the modern economy,” he wrote,
“but capable of killing large numbers of people if designed or
operated poorly.”
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