Dario Amodei logs on to answer the critics

In a rare public appearance on X, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei responded to criticism from investor Gavin Baker and colleague Sholto Douglas regarding his AI safety messaging and company strategy. Baker had claimed that Amodei's risk warnings about AI are backfiring and fueling anti-data-center sentiment, while also spreading a rumor that Anthropic envisions becoming the world's only private AI company. Amodei rejected both claims, characterizing his safety messaging as honest communication rather than doom-saying. He argued that the public trust problem in AI is fundamental and cannot be resolved through marketing campaigns alone. Instead, Amodei contended that only tangible breakthroughs in fields like biology and medicine will meaningfully shift public sentiment toward AI. On the regulatory front, Amodei pushed back against Baker's argument that he has "lost the argument" on AI governance, framing the debate between lockdown and open-source distribution as a false choice. He positioned Anthropic's proposals as a middle path that slows development at major labs while allowing smaller organizations to participate. The broader context suggests Anthropic has faced recent PR challenges, making Amodei's intervention significant given his typically limited public presence. The newsletter also covered broader AI developments including GLM-5.3's coding capabilities, Pika's new audio models, Google's Gemini Flash 3.7, and Anthropic's watermarking initiatives for Claude.