Prisoner’s dilemma

Anthropic employees trade in metaphors: brain scanners, “grown” neural networks, races to both top and bottom. Amodei offers one more, comparing his decision not to release Claude in 2022 to the prisoner’s dilemma. 

In this famous game-theory experiment, two prisoners face a choice: betray the other for a chance at freedom, or stay silent and cooperate for a reduced sentence. If both betray, they each fare worse than if they’d cooperated. It’s a situation where individual incentives lead to worse collective outcomes—a dynamic Amodei sees playing out in the AI industry today. 

Companies taking risks are rewarded by the market, while responsible actions are punished. “I don’t want us to be in this impossible prisoner’s dilemma,” Amodei says. “I want to change the ecosystem so there is no prisoner’s dilemma, and everyone’s incentivized to do the right thing.”

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