Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei breaks silence on open-weight AI ban debate

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei after days of speculations has responded to open-weight AI ban debate.

The US-based tech company on Monday clarified its position regarding publicly available AI models and said it “has never advocated for a ban on open-weight AI models.”

“Anyone who has read my past writing should know that I don’t regard such bans as a useful measure, but let me state it clearly so that there is no doubt: Anthropic has never advocated for a ban on open-weights models,” he wrote in a blogpost.

The clarification comes as prominent AI companies and tech giants defend the open-weight AI models while rejecting the government’s strict regulations and bans on them. Besides Anthropic, Nvidia, OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Meta and many others have signed an open-letter rejecting Washington’s curbs on open AI models.

Amodei also rejected accusations that his lab is looking to protect its closed-model business from competition. He also raised his concern on Chinese open AI models, arguing they do little to prevent actual threats related to privacy and cybersecurity.

On Monday, Nvidia also formed an industry-wide coalition with other tech companies to promote AI safety and cybersecurity following the Hugging Face incident.

At the heart of this debate lies the intensified tech rivalry between the US and China. Chinese AI startup Moonshot’s much-touted Kimi K3 is all behind the fuss and calls for banning the open models.

Kimi K3 when released became the source of discomfort in Silicon Valley because of its capabilities and potential to rival Anthropic and OpenAI. Later, the White House accused Moonshot of stealing Anthropic Claude Fable 5 technology through distillation to build Kimi K3. However, China rejected such accusations.

In February, Anthropic reported identifying over 3.4 million interactions with its Claude models linked to Moonshot.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that Chinese firms engaging in covert intellectual property theft will face potential financial sanctions and placement on the Commerce Department’s Entity List. In response, Beijing accused Washington of “AI hegemonism and distilling Chinese advanced technology for AI training.”