Santosuosso questions Anthropic on safety team size and sufficiency

Thank you, Chair.

I primarily have questions for just Mr.

Graham and for OpenAI as well.

This morning we heard testimony from a former Anthropic employee that based on his time in the company, he believes that it is more likely than not that misaligned AI will lead to the quote unquote total extinction of humanity.

Another whistleblower who testified this morning gave this a one in three chance.

Mr.

Graham, if I understand it, you are part of the red team, which is tasked with identifying and addressing the riskiest capabilities of AI.

So my question for you is how many people are on your team?

Current estimates about 25 just on my team that we have, I will say we have a number of teams that work on similarly catastrophic risks in various roles, number into the hundreds at Anthropic.

And how many people work for Anthropic overall?

My current understanding is maybe a bit more than 5,000.

So 25 people are working on the riskiest forms of AI in a company that has 5,000 employees dedicated to advancing just the models without regard for safety or for that level of risk?

In reality, if you look at all the roles focused on catastrophic risks, my personal estimate would be likely several hundred at least.

This is distributed across our safeguards team that focuses on ensuring that the models or any misuse for catastrophic risks does not happen.

Our alignment research team that focuses on notions of loss of control, for example, and between them at least several hundred.

And do you feel that is sufficient?

Or do you feel that you need to dedicate more time and resources and people to the riskiest capabilities of AI, given the level of risk?

Yeah, our view is that we put a lot of resources into this, and this is what we're known for.

But at the same time, we need to continue doing more.

This is a part of Anthropic that continues to grow quite substantially, especially as the models become more capable.

And I don't mean to cut you off, but I only have so much time, so I want to ask the same question of OpenAI.

How many people on your team are dedicated to...

Addressing and identifying the riskiest capabilities of AI versus the number of employees in your company overall.

And do you find that sufficient?

So I lead the policy team.

but I'm happy to get back to you on numbers of people in the overall company as well as in our safety teams.

But at OpenAI, we don't believe that you should just rely on our safety teams and our evaluators.

I'm sorry.

Again, I'm sorry to cut you off.

I just only have so much time.

Can you tell me how many people in your company are currently working to address the risk of the...

Potential extinction of humanity.

As I said, I lead the policy team, so I don't have that number.

But we not only have teams that are focused.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Up next, we have Councilmember Juan, followed by Hanif, followed by Aviles, followed by Gutierrez.