Jack Clark
Anthropic co-founder who departed to lead the new Anthropic Institute think tank, shifting from company operations to shaping AI policy discourse at a critical moment in the Pentagon dispute.
Jack Clark co-founded Anthropic alongside Dario and Daniela Amodei in 2021, part of the cohort of researchers who left OpenAI over disagreements about safety priorities and governance. Before Anthropic, Clark served as Policy Director at OpenAI and co-authored the influential AI Index at Stanford University’s Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute, establishing himself as one of the foremost voices on AI measurement and policy.
The Anthropic Institute
Clark departed Anthropic’s operational leadership to found and lead the Anthropic Institute, a new think tank focused on AI safety research and policy. The Institute is positioned as an independent entity — distinct from Anthropic the company — that can engage with governments, academia, and civil society on questions about AI governance without the constraints of representing a commercial interest. The timing, amid the Pentagon dispute, was widely interpreted as a strategic move to ensure Anthropic’s safety arguments had an institutional home that could survive any outcome of the government confrontation.
Policy Influence
Clark’s career arc — from Stanford AI Index architect to OpenAI policy director to Anthropic co-founder to think tank leader — traces the evolution of AI safety from academic concern to geopolitical flashpoint. His transition to the Anthropic Institute reflects a bet that the long-term battle over AI governance will be won in policy frameworks and public discourse, not in contract negotiations with individual government agencies.