Jack Clark — on the record

Jack Clark

Co-founder of Anthropic and author of the Import AI newsletter who tells Congress and audiences that powerful AI is a few years away, carries a non-zero chance of killing everyone, and needs a coordinated brake pedal before it improves itself.

Roles

Feb 2013 – Aug 2014Reporter, The RegisterSource →
Aug 2014 – Aug 2016Reporter, Bloomberg and BusinessWeekLed Bloomberg's coverage of artificial intelligence.Source →
Sept 2016 – 2020Policy Director, OpenAILeft to co-found Anthropic.Source →
Feb 2017 – 2024Steering committee member, later co-chair, AI Index, Stanford UniversitySource →
Jan 2021 – Mar 2026Co-founder and Head of Policy, AnthropicSource →
2021 – 2024Member, National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee (United States)Source →
Mar 2026 – presentCo-founder and Head of Public Benefit; leads the Anthropic Institute, AnthropicSource →

On the record

5 Jun 2026 · Interview · CNN
The AI industry right now has a gas pedal, but it doesn't have a brake pedal in the car, and we want to do some of the work to build that pedal.
Co-founder and Head of Public Benefit; leads the Anthropic Institute, Anthropic at the time
Said to CNN; Euronews carries the words verbatim. Anthropic reported more than 80% of code merged into its codebase was written by Claude.
Anthropic calls for 'brake pedal' before AI develops itself without human oversight →
4 Jun 2026 · Post · The Anthropic Institute
We believe it would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause frontier AI development to enable societal structures and alignment research to keep up.
Co-founder and Head of Public Benefit; leads the Anthropic Institute, Anthropic at the time
Co-authored with Marina Favaro; page is dated only "May 2026" while Euronews, CNN and UPI report publication on 4 June 2026.
When AI builds itself →
May 2026 · Speech · Cosmos HAI Lab Lecture, University of Oxford
We have not ever encountered a technology that has this property, where it can make a better version of itself without people.
Co-founder and Head of Public Benefit; leads the Anthropic Institute, Anthropic at the time
TIME reports he said AI posed a "non-zero" chance of killing everybody on the planet and predicted recursive self-improvement by 2028; day of the lecture not confirmed.
A Tale of Two Anthropics →
13 Oct 2025 · Speech · The Curve conference, Berkeley
We are growing extremely powerful systems that we do not fully understand.
Co-founder and Head of Policy, Anthropic at the time
Same speech; "You see, I am also deeply afraid. It would be extraordinarily arrogant to think working with a technology like this would be easy or simple."
Import AI 431: Technological Optimism and Appropriate Fear →
25 Jun 2025 · Testimony · US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party
Winning the race is a necessary but not sufficient achievement - we have to get safety right. … I believe that powerful AI could be buildable by late 2026 or early 2027.
Co-founder and Head of Policy, Anthropic at the time
Also told the committee that AI systems "can carry out actions which are not intended by their creators".
Testimony of Jack Clark, Co-Founder and Head of Policy, Anthropic — “Algorithms and Authoritarians: Why U.S. AI Must Lead” →