Ben Bernanke Joins Anthropic Oversight Trust

https://www.anthropic.com/news/ben-bernanke

by Jimmc414 • 13 days ago

80 85 13 days ago

anthropic.com

Jimmc414• 13 days ago

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-09/former-fe...

yieldcrv2• 13 days ago

Is he for loosening or tightening AI safety policy?

CGMthrowaway• 13 days ago

If anything he would be for tightening it, but I suspect his role is less about being a vote one way or the other.

The value he brings is in his data, knowledge & analyses - which he surely has from the Fed - on the scope and extent of AI's potential rrisks in capital sustainability, market stability and wage/job displacement

Iakeman• 13 days ago

That's a funny way of saying connections

yieldcrv2• 13 days ago

[wheeeeeeeze]

rekwah• 13 days ago

This feels like Theranos loading up their board with big names.

mountainriver2• 13 days ago

Except Anthropic has delivered a truly world changing product…

lostaccount• 13 days ago

World changing in a good way?

patcon2• 13 days ago

So did Los Alamos?

Edit: don't get me wrong, I'm a happy user. But I'd also be a happy consumer of refined sugar in the early 20th century. I'm still not sure if these tools won't destabilize society to the point of collapse. I don't think we understand the complexity of what's going on nearly enough, and am certainly not optimistic about AI being net good for us

hatefulheart3• 13 days ago

8 months ago I asked this question, I will ask again:

Where are your browsers? Where are your compilers? Where are your databases? Where are your operating systems?

Can you point me to literally anything useful that works and was created by this world changing technology? All I see is dead project after dead project.

casey2• 13 days ago

No, that would be OpenAI (or Google if you want to talk technicals). Anthropic's strategy was just let RL on coding and jack up the price. I can only assume their real strategy is to speedrun getting the whole industry turned into a utility.

fragmede2• 13 days ago

You can complain that the economics don't work out for you, but Theranos was a fraud, meaning they didn't have a product. Fable is very much a real thing that I can interact with over the Internet.

jimbob45• 13 days ago

Has it ever been proven that the board knew that Theranos was fraudulent? I’m speaking broadly - of course they probably had their own suspicions.

BrenBarn• 13 days ago

Whoop de doo. I'm sure there'll be huge earth-shaking changes in their activities now, right?

eknkc• 13 days ago

Someone here recently said, “Dishonesty is a core value of Anthropic,” and that aligns with my experience of the company as a user. All their talk about AI safety since the company’s inception now feels like pure theater, given their conduct in everyday operations. It’s a shame how quickly their image has deteriorated.

Avicebron• 13 days ago

Dishonesty is at the core of Effective Altruism, which strangles a lot of the sensible choices Anthropic should be making. Although this feels more like, "anyone with socio-political edge worming their way in to suckle on the feed of imaginary printed money" more than anything.

colinb• 13 days ago

Can you provide some context for this? I’m aware of SBF’s EA links, and how empty those sentiments appear to have been, but I’m just some guy, and it isn’t clear to me that the whole idea is dishonest, even if I don’t think it’s terribly realistic.

siren2026• 13 days ago

That's actually exactly how I feel about Anthropic.

They play such a PR game, trying really really hard to be seen as the good guys. It feels as another satirical episode of Silicon Valley. It's very clear they are all money and power motivated while also pretending to do all of this for the good of humanity. I have rarely seen that level of hypocrisy and cultish behavior from leadership and employees there.

I would honestly just prefer if they were honest about being power and money hungry instead of playing that game of AI Safety.

SOLAR_FIELDS• 13 days ago

At least Sam Altman appeared to drop all pretenses of his pure sociopathy some time ago

ifwinterco2• 13 days ago

The funny thing is it’s so transparent. Like… is that the point? They want us to know how dodgy they are, kind of as a “** you”?

Often the point of propaganda is not to convince, it’s to demoralise.

On the other hand I could also believe that they live in such a bubble they genuinely don’t understand how it comes across. Add in a non-negligible amount of neurodivergence and maybe that’s the simplest explanation

tencentshill• 12 days ago

Palantir is a good guide. Their ad copy is frightening. "we will create the ultimate killers for total domination to make your enemies SUFFER"

mrtobo• 12 days ago

Oh come on, like any other AI company is better? They all remind me of a comical villain - Anthropic the least.

reasonableklout• 13 days ago

Hm, they are still the most transparent lab when it comes to publishing system cards and safety research. For example the system card for Fable 5 runs 319 pages.

The stuff with Fable falling back to Opus was a bad business move but seems consistent with their position on safety and was published in the system card. Is Ben Bernanke joining the board a dishonest move?

visiondude• 13 days ago

so the architect of government bailout gets a cushy gig. probably one of the most harmful precedents set and now companies expect bailouts. to bailout the company instead of people and small shareholders was always poor decision, emboldened the worst of the business class. don’t love this hire lol

kefabean• 13 days ago

So does this appointment signpost a likely industry-wide token squeeze requiring Benanke’s specific domain knowledge to navigate?

DesaiAshu• 13 days ago

The government response to the ‘08 crisis seems to have worked out better for most big banks (low taxing of negative externalities, growing larger and more profitable), than for regional banks (consolidated) and the bulk of Americans (low median wealth, rising costs of housing/living)

Given the data on this[1], this is a confusing choice of hire to ensure AI gains are distributed equitably

[1] https://economicprinciples.org/Why-and-How-Capitalism-Needs-...

eru• 13 days ago

The having so many tiny regional banks is a holdover from the bad old days when branch banking was largely outlawed.

pickleglitch• 12 days ago

What gives you the idea that they want to distribute the gains from AI equitably?

i_idiot• 13 days ago

These guys have to produce a hit piece everyday...everyone by now knows that "we are doing this for humanity" is bullshit.

preisschild2• 12 days ago

everyone by now knows that "we are doing this for humanity" is bullshit.

There are people here in this thread that act like LLMs are the best invention since sliced bread

brikym3• 13 days ago

Just in case Anthropic are looking for some more members that are a good cultural fit I found this list:

Genie Energy's Strategic advisory board is composed of: Dick Cheney since 2009 (former vice president of the United States),[3] Rupert Murdoch (media mogul and chairman of News Corp), James Woolsey (former CIA director), Larry Summers (former head of the US Treasury), Michael Steinhardt, Jacob Rothschild,[4][5] and Mary Landrieu, former United States Senator from Louisiana.

j_bum• 13 days ago

Dick Cheney passed away in 2025, just an FYI.

brikym3• 13 days ago

I'd recommend they substitute him for a well known, uncontroversial figure like Klaus Schwab.

jules-jules• 13 days ago

Big fan of Larry Summers here. He seems to be part of everything, Harvard, Epstein, etc.

sph• 13 days ago

Imagine Rupert Murdoch (95, worth $21.7 billion) arguing the pros and cons of job displacement and widening economic inequality caused by generative AI.

zxcb1• 13 days ago

Illuminati

esikich• 13 days ago

He's 72 years old, I'm sure he has the best brains and everyone's best interests in mind. This is exactly what I want to see. I'm sure he will have very good opinions on technology and it's implications.

colordrops• 13 days ago

I assume this is sarcasm?

protocolture• 13 days ago

Ben Bernanke would have figured that out already.

brikym3• 13 days ago

Good instinct — this is exactly the kind of issue we should keep an eye on.

carabiner• 13 days ago

Fair callout.

RetroTechie2• 12 days ago

The sarcasm is strong in this thread...

steve19772• 13 days ago

Bjarne Stroustrup is 75 years old. I don't think that age per se tells us much.

Balinares• 13 days ago

What's Stroustrup up to these days though?

m11a2• 13 days ago

I had conversations with Ben a few years ago about his economics research (incidentally related to some research I was doing at the time). I wouldn't have guessed he was close to 70. He's a sharp guy.

(I also think his economics research is excellent, and the comments elsewhere about his track record aren't particularly fair.)

derangedHorse• 12 days ago

This sounds like age discrimination.

paxys• 12 days ago

Hires like these are made for their brand rather than expertise. His job will be to attend galas, schmooze with investors and give legitimacy to the operation. The company will hire others to do the real work.

dtk09• 12 days ago

The company will hire others to do the real work.

For 1/10th the pay, 10x the effort, and 0% of the credit!

Reminds me of Walter Isaacson, the Musk biographer. Supposedly he was hired by an investment bank after he made his fortune, and is a member of the American Philosophical Society [1]. Truly a one of a kind person: a biographer of famous people, an expert on financial markets, and a leading philosopher all at the same time!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Isaacson

sillyfluke• 12 days ago

Yeah, this seems like reputation renting similar to Larry Summers being put on the board of OpenAI, which turned out, um...very well I guess. For different reasons of course.

I guess it's better than him joining OpenAI, where I could see Altman being more "creative" with the books than Amodei. But I just don't Bernanke pushing back or blowing any whistles when things start smelling funny.

_aavaa_• 12 days ago

He's just old enough to be part of congress. Give him another decade and he'll be ready to run for president.

whatever1• 13 days ago

Any idea how one can join a board? Eating donuts and bagels with coffee once a quarter for 200k is my dream job.

godwinson__4-8• 13 days ago

Already be rich. Sorry buddy, as George Carlin said it's a big club, and you ain't in it.

camillomiller• 13 days ago

Prepairing another bailout, I see

Ben Bernanke Joins Anthropic Oversight Trust

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