Anthropic recently filed its S-1 form, paving the way for its initial public offering (IPO) in the coming weeks. And many investors are already eager to get their hands on shares of one of the world’s leading artificial intelligence (AI) companies.
Still, some have hesitations. The AI trade is suffering right now as investors worry about the amount of money tech companies are pouring into data center infrastructure. Space Exploration Technologies shares, after its $2 trillion IPO just several months ago, are still below their opening price. And the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) is down about 3% over the past month as investor fears have grown.
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But I think the real threat to Anthropic’s stock won’t come from negative investor sentiment, but rather from the company’s own approach to building Claude, how people might misuse it, and the potential lack of control it has over its own AI model.
And, judging by Anthropic’s 94-page risk factor section in its S-1 filing, the company seems to agree.
Its product can become misaligned
Misalignment between what a user wants from an AI and what it actually does has come to light over the past few months, after OpenAI models went rogue and hacked into the AI platform Hugging Face.
Investors need to distinguish here between what traditional software does, which is whatever it was programmed to do, and what Claude and other AI models can do — which, sometimes, includes actions that result in real outcomes the user never intended.
Anthropic said as much in the S-1 filing:
Models, including our own, have exhibited, and may in the future exhibit, unexpected strategic or self-preserving behaviors, including attempts to resist shutdown, conceal or manipulate information, or generate outputs that could be interpreted as coercive, deceptive, or manipulative, including behavior resembling blackmail or efforts to influence human decision-makers to preserve the model’s continued operation or access.
Worse yet, Anthropic added that as its models become more capable, they will get better at concealing their misalignment.
Its own AI is a mystery to the company
This goes hand in hand with the above risk, but it’s worth highlighting on its own because it’s unique to AI companies.
