Anthropic PBC today announced the formation of the Anthropic Institute, a business unit tasked with studying the risks posed by artificial intelligence.

The unit will bring three of the company’s existing teams together under the leadership of co-founder Jack Clark. As part of the move, Anthropic has appointed the executive as its head of public benefit.

The first team that forms part of the Anthropic Institute is known as the Frontier Red Team. It’s responsible for studying AI-related cybersecurity risks. In one recent project, the unit used Claude to scan Firefox’s code base for vulnerabilities. It later tested whether the AI can autonomously develop ways of exploiting the bugs that it finds.

The Anthropic Institute also includes the company’s Societal Impacts team. The latter unit collects data on how users interact with Claude. Last month, it published a study that evaluated why and when workers allow AI agents to perform tasks in a fully autonomous manner. 

The third unit that Anthropic is folding into the Anthropic Institute is called Economic Research. As the name suggests, it studies the economic impact of AI. The unit is responsible for publishing Anthropic’s Economic Index report, which contains data on what business activities its customers are automating with Claude.

Besides bringing the three business units under one roof, the company also plans to grow their headcount. As part of the recruiting drive, Anthropic has hired Matt Botvinick, a former senior director of research at Google DeepMind. He is joining the company alongside former OpenAI Group PBC researcher Zoë Hitzig and economics professor Anton Korinek.

Anthropic stated that Korinek will lead a project focused on understanding how AI could “reshape the very nature of economic activity.” Hitzig, in turn, is “joining to connect our economics work to model training and development.” 

The Anthropic Institute is also working on a number of other projects. According to the company, the unit is seeking to predict future AI progress and understand how technology may interact with the legal system in the future.

In parallel with the effort to grow the Anthropic Institute, the company plans to boost the headcount of an existing team called Public Policy. The unit is responsible for, among other things, drafting the AI-related policy suggestions that the software maker occasionally shares with lawmakers. Those suggestions focus on topics such as the manner in which AI infrastructure investments are regulated.

Anthropic has appointed former Stripe Inc. executive Sarah Heck to lead the Public Policy team. According to the company, the next step will be to open an office for the unit in Washington, D.C this spring. The company plans to follow up the move by expanding its policy work in international markets. 

Image: Anthropic