Anthropic has quietly removed from its website several voluntary commitments the company made in conjunction with the Biden administration in 2023 to promote safe and “trustworthy” AI.
The commitments, which included pledges to share information on managing AI risks across industry and government and research on AI bias and discrimination, were deleted from Anthropic’s transparency hub last week, according to AI watchdog group The Midas Project. Other Biden-era commitments relating to reducing AI-generated image-based sexual abuse remain.
Anthropic appears to have given no notice of the change. The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Anthropic, along with companies including OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Inflection, announced in July 2023 that it had agreed to adhere to certain voluntary AI safety commitments proposed by the Biden administration. The commitments included internal and external security tests of AI systems before release, investing in cybersecurity to protect sensitive AI data, and developing methods of watermarking AI-generated content.
To be clear, Anthropic had already adopted a number of the practices outlined in the commitments, and the accord wasn’t legally binding. But the Biden administration’s intent was to signal its AI policy priorities ahead of the more exhaustive AI executive order, which came into force several months later.
The Trump administration has indicated that its approach to AI governance will be quite different.
In January, President Trump repealed the aforementioned AI executive order, which had instructed the National Institute of Standards and Technology to author guidance that helps companies identify — and correct — flaws in models, including biases. Critics allied with Trump argued that the order’s reporting requirements were onerous and effectively forced companies to disclose their trade secrets.
Shortly after revoking the AI Executive Order, Trump signed an order directing federal agencies to promote the development of AI “free from ideological bias” that promotes “human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.” Importantly, Trump’s order made no mention of combating AI discrimination, which was a key tenet of Biden’s initiative.
As The Midas Project noted in a series of posts on X, nothing in the Biden-era commitments suggested that the promise was time-bound or contingent on the party affiliation of the sitting president. In November, following the election, multiple AI companies confirmed that their commitments hadn’t changed.
Anthropic isn’t the only firm to adjust its public policies in the months since Trump took office. OpenAI recently announced it would embrace “intellectual freedom … no matter how challenging or controversial a topic may be,” and work to ensure that its AI doesn’t censor certain viewpoints.
OpenAI also scrubbed a page on its website that used to express the startup’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI. These programs have come under fire from the Trump administration, leading a number of companies to eliminate or substantially retool their DEI initiatives.
Many of Trump’s Silicon Valley advisers on AI, including Marc Andreessen, David Sacks, and Elon Musk, have alleged that companies, including Google and OpenAI, have engaged in AI censorship by limiting their AI chatbots’ answers. Labs including OpenAI have denied that their policy changes are in response to political pressure.
Both OpenAI and Anthropic have or are actively pursuing government contracts.
Several hours after this story was published, Anthropic sent TechCrunch the following statement:
“We remain committed to the voluntary AI commitments established under the Biden Administration. This progress and specific actions continue to be reflected in [our] transparency center within the content. To prevent further confusion, we will add a section directly citing where our progress aligns.”
Updated 11:25 a.m. Pacific: Added a statement from Anthropic.
