Disclosure certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Mann: Anthropic focuses RSP safety on biology over nuclear risks

Ben Mann · No Priors Ep. 118 | With Anthropic Co-Founder Ben Mann · Jun 12, 2025 · at 30:19

Ben Mann, co-founder of Anthropic, explains how the company prioritizes catastrophic risks in its Responsible Scaling Policy.

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“Initially, our RSP talked about CVRN, which is chemical, radiological, nuclear, and biological risks, which are different areas that could cause severe loss of life in the world, and that's how we thought about the harms, but now we're much more focused on biology, because if you think about, like, the amount of resources that you would need to cause a nuclear harm, you'd probably have to be Like a state actor to get those resources and be able to use them in a harmful way. Whereas a much smaller group of random people could get their hands on the reagents necessary for biological harm.”

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