Anthropic said on July 9 that Ben Bernanke, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who chaired the Federal Reserve through the 2008 financial crisis, has joined its Long-Term Benefit Trust (LTBT), the independent body created to hold the AI company to its mission of developing AI safely and for the long-term benefit of humanity.
What the trust does
The LTBT is a panel of independent trustees with no financial stake in Anthropic. It advises the company’s board and leadership on decisions involving AI risk and societal impact, and it has the power to appoint members to Anthropic’s board. Bernanke joins current trustees Neil Buddy Shah, who chairs the body, Richard Fontaine and Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar.
Why Bernanke
Bernanke led the Fed from 2006 to 2014, steering the US economy through the 2008 financial crisis, and later won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for research on banking and the Great Depression. He is now a Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei said Bernanke’s “career has run from studying how economies react to disruptive moments to helping steer the world’s largest economy through one such time,” calling that experience relevant as AI reshapes labor markets and economic institutions.
Bernanke said in a statement that “the potential of artificial intelligence is enormous, and so is the range of outcomes,” adding that he was “honored to have this opportunity.”
Shah, the trust’s chair, said the addition reflects a broader point: “the institutions built around this technology will matter as much as the technology itself.”
Context
The appointment comes as Anthropic has repeatedly flagged AI’s labor-market effects as a priority; the company recently reported that many Claude users say AI already handles a significant share of their work, and it has backed initiatives to retrain workers displaced by automation. Bernanke’s addition gives the trust dedicated expertise on how large economic shocks unfold and how institutions respond to them.