Anthropic Launching Its Own Think Tank

Artificial intelligence (AI) firms are taking the think tank world by storm.  Here is the latest from one of them, Anthropic:

We’re launching The Anthropic Institute, a new effort to confront the most significant challenges that powerful AI will pose to our societies. The Anthropic Institute will draw on research from across Anthropic to provide information that other researchers and the public can use during our transition to a world containing much more powerful AI systems. 

The Institute is led by our co-founder Jack Clark, who will assume a new role as Anthropic’s Head of Public Benefit. It has an interdisciplinary staff of machine learning engineers, economists, and social scientists, bringing together and expanding three of Anthropic’s research teams: the Frontier Red Team, which stress-tests AI systems to understand the outermost limits of their current capabilities; Societal Impacts, which studies how AI is being used in the real world; and Economic Research, which tracks its impact on jobs and the larger economy. The Institute will also incubate new teams, and is currently working on efforts around forecasting AI progress and better understanding how powerful AI will interact with the legal system. 

 

The new think tank has already made several hires and is still continuing to hire.  One job posting for an analyst lists the salary as $295,000 to $345,000.

A number of think tanks have created programs specifically focused on AI, and some AI-specific think tanks have been launched.  One example is the Institute for AI Policy and Strategy (IAPS), which bills itself as "a nonpartisan think tank that produces policy research to address the implications of AI."

Here is a recent piece on the future of think tanks in the age of AI.  Here is another piece on how think tanks can respond to the age of AI.  Here is another piece on the "triple threat," including AI, facing think tanks.

CSIS Names New CEO

Here is more from CSIS;

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) today announced that retired General Joseph F. Dunford, who served as the 19th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been named its next chief executive officer.

General Dunford will assume the role on May 7, 2026, succeeding John Hamre, who announced last year that he will retire as CEO after 26 years of transformational leadership at CSIS. As CEO, General Dunford will oversee all aspects of CSIS’s research programming and operations, guiding the Center’s strategic direction and institutional growth. His appointment comes at a critical moment, as CSIS centers its scholarship on the defining challenges of a changing global order marked by strategic competition, technological transformation, and evolving security threats.

One of the nation’s most respected national security leaders, General Dunford brings decades of experience at the highest levels of national decisionmaking. He served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—the nation’s highest-ranking military officer—under Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, from October 2015 through September 2019. Previously, he served as the 36th commandant of the Marine Corps. He also commanded the International Security Assistance Force and United States Forces–Afghanistan from February 2013 to August 2014.  

John Hamre will continue contributing to CSIS’s scholarship and global engagement as CEO emeritus once General Dunford assumes the CEO position on May 7. 

 

Dunford has served on Lockheed Martin's board of directors since February 2020.  He has also served as a senior managing director and partner of Liberty Strategic Capital and as a member of the firm's investment committee since Feb. 2022.  Liberty is led by Steven Mnuchin, the former US Treasury Secretary in the first Trump Administration.  

In May 2022 he joined the board of directors of satellite imagery firm Satellogic.  A press release at that time said the board of directors of Satellogic included Mnuchin and Howard Lutnick, who is now the US Commerce Secretary. 

He's been a resident senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, and he has been a board member of Georgetown University.

Think Tanker Manipulated Online Prediction Market

Here is more from the Wall Street Journal:

Responsible Statecraft, a publication of left-leaning Quincy Institute, reports, that in November a staffer at the Institute for the Study of War was fired for editing a map to show that Russian forces had taken the Ukrainian town of Myrnohrad.  The employee knew that Polymarket often used the institute's maps to settle bets about military outcomes.  By fabricating a Russian advance, according to the report, the staffer triggered payouts as high as 33,000% on bets that Russia would take the town by Nov. 15." 

 

Here is Responsible Statecraft's piece on the incident.