Matthew Botvinick

We're building a team at @Anthropic focusing on AI and the rule of law. We've made our first hires, and are now opening up a new research engineer role. We're looking for people with advanced technical skills, including AI/deep learning/NLP, full-stack development and data science, paired with training or experience in law, government, political science, or a related field. If this is you, or a friend, please get in touch. job-boards.greenhouse.io/anthropic/jobs…

Fixing the tag: @AnthropicAI

Totally right. "Democratic" is of course used as a shorthand for this more detailed structure. Historically, efforts toward more grass-roots democracy have indeed been flawed (mainly because they have been gamed by special interests). AI may help us increase civic participation in a more sustainable way. That's something we plan to explore on the team.

Pedantic tangent, but America does not have “democratic governance.” We have democratic elections and *representative* governance, constrained by law. Attempts to approximate democratic governance have a poor record (referenda, community input, etc.)

I’m delighted to report that my book, AI and Political Freedom, is now available for pre-order (ahead of publication October 6). However, I’m even more delighted to share that I’m personally choosing to donate my author royalties to Protect Democracy (@protctdemocracy), in support of their AI for Democracy Action Lab. Please check out the Action Lab’s webpage, linked in the replies.

Anthropic now has a team dedicated to AI and the rule of law — and we've just opened our first role. @AnthropicAI has studied what AI means for the economy. This team asks a different question: what will it mean for executive power, for courts and elections — and for the public deliberation that constitutional democracy ultimately rests on? We're looking for someone with real depth in both AI and the law — a legal scholar, political scientist, or experienced government hand who can reason about frontier systems and the institutions they will affect. If that's you, or someone you know: job-boards.greenhouse.io/anthropic/jobs…

Shout out to Greg Wayne at @GoogleDeepMind, who introduced this idea in 2014 -- arxiv.org/abs/1410.5401

Confession: I am grateful for AI hallucinations. They mean I have something material to do after Claude writes something -- I have to go out there and fact-check everything. I have work to do. I'm very important, dammit!

Exactly. And if we are not careful, society will divide into people who are sure (based on vibes) that AI is conscious, and other people who are sure (based on vibes) that it is not -- and then we'll have a religious war on our hands. Something that @RichardDawkins should understand well.

The simple fact is that it cannot be proven positive or negative. Either claim - that AI is not and cannot be conscious, or that it definitively is or could be conscious - require ontological assumptions that do not obtain.

@PalantirTech #NoAISafetyWithoutDemocracy

Where does democracy come in, @PalantirTech? The word "Republic" is in the title, and I see "progressive values" later. But something is missing. The emphasis in the book is on "defending democracy" from adversaries. But what about preserving democracy at home? It used to be that a passion for that project *was* a key part of what bound us together as Americans. There's no sense in A Technological Republic that that American constitutional democracy -- what Habermas called 'constitutional patriotism' -- is a binding cultural force. If that's true, then something truly has been lost.

Because we get asked a lot. The Technological Republic, in brief. 1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation. 2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible. 3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public. 4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software. 5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed. 6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost. 7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way. 8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive. 9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret. 10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed. 11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice. 12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin. 13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet. 14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war. 15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia. 16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn. 17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives. 18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within. 19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all. 20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim. 21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful. 22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what? Excerpts from the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, by Alexander C. Karp & Nicholas W. Zamiska techrepublicbook.com

This Chinese humanoid robot just shattered the world record for a half marathon, finishing in 50 min 26 sec. This video shows its crash just meters before the finish line where it had to be picked up by a team of humans. The robot is from Honor, the smartphone maker and Huawei spin-off. This robot was teleoperated while others were autonomous. It seems like all the robots had battery swaps along the way.

The conceipt here is that we are 'just starting' to ask these questions. The opposite is true: We have already gotten as far as we are going to get. The question of whether AI is (or will be) conscious is *undecideable*, for the simple reason that there is no way to measure or detect consciousness (except our own). Assuming otherwise leads us down a road toward new forms of religious faith, with people passionately adopting entrenched views on questions that actually cannot be rationally answered. That's potentially dangerous. Where we need to go with these conversations instead is to anchor on our own terminal ignorance about consciousness and go from there. This may still lead to 'what if' conversations about machine consciousness, but in a different register, underpinned by epistemic humility.

New conversation with @dioscuri and @rgblong on AI consciousness and welfare! Among many other topics, we discuss: - Why we should take AI consciousness and welfare seriously - What Rob found doing the first external welfare evaluation of a frontier model, Claude, and his experiments on Claude Mythos - The "willing servitude" problem: if AI loves being helpful, is that good or horrifying? - Why AI companies might have an incentive to downplay AI consciousness (1/2)

This is the most important AI bill under discussion right now, and it doesn't even mention AI. nytimes.com/2026/04/17/opi…

@QuintinPope5 Such a cool graph. Railroads are an interesting comparison case for AI -- Woodrow Wilson nationalized the railway system in the name of national security. And there was a movement in Congress to make that permanent.

As a percent of GDP, hyperscaling isn't that extreme. The railroads were goddamn crazy, though!

It does feel like the popular conversation is shifting. In many ways, that's good -- Everyone should be learning about, thinking about, and talking about AI. Including late-night comedians like @billmaher. There *should* be politics around it -- in the positive sense. The risk is that -- in typical American style -- people will take the full picture, rip it in half, and think only about the half they're looking at. Yes, AI threatens jobs. But don't we need to keep going with it for legitimate geostrategic reasons? Yes, the AI labs have too much unilateral power right now. But shouldn't we also guard against government co-optation and misuse? Yes, society in general should have more of a say, but how do we avoid emotion-driven, impulsive and self-destructive decisions? In order to get AI right, we need to fix democratic deliberation. Maybe AI can scare us straight (as @billmaher said, he considered doing his bit without jokes...).

Every AI lab needs to hire a PR expert. Several of them.

@elonmusk Noob question, @elonmusk -- Who is paying for the goods and services? Where is the circular flow of income that makes an economy?

Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI. AI/robotics will produce goods & services far in excess of the increase in the money supply, so there will not be inflation.

🚨NEW in @axios AM, @JimVandeHei @AnthropicAI CEO @DarioAmodei is scheduled to meet at the White House today w chief of staff Susie Wiles It's a breakthrough in his effort to resolve his bitter fight w the Pentagon Insiders cite the power of Mythos⬇️ axios.com/2026/04/17/ant…