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The AI industry has descended upon Washington. The industry recently pledged up to $200 million toward new super PACs aimed at influencing upcoming elections. And on Monday, I attended an event that epitomized this swell of capital and effort: The Anthropic Futures Forum. The gathering, hosted in the East Wing of Union Station in all of its Beaux-Arts splendor, served as an advertisement for Anthropic’s technical prowess and self-proclaimed good intentions—and a rallying cry for D.C. power players to help them usher in AI’s transformative potential while preventing AI-induced societal disaster.
Bold proclamations
In speeches, Anthropic leaders offered bold claims about the future of AI. Jack Clark, Anthropic’s co-founder, said that by the end of 2026 or 2027, AI will be smarter than a Nobel Prize winner across many major disciplines. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei described this coming reality as akin to having a “country of geniuses in a data center.” Other speakers touted rapid improvements in scientific research and work efficiency.
Amodei has faced backlash this year for overly ambitious predictions, including saying six months ago that 90 percent of code would be written by AI in six months. But while that prediction was proven incorrect, it’s undeniable that AI has improved far past what skeptics believed possible. To demonstrate this, the company showed an AI poem about autumn in Washington, D.C. from 2018:
The company then displayed a poem about autumn in D.C. generated by Claude 4.1 Opus, which featured both a workable rhyme scheme and metaphors, including the phrase: “Where Lincoln watches seasons turn / And autumn gilds the Reflecting Pool / Where power shifts and pages turn / As steady as the weather’s rule.”
Despite critics who argue that AI progress is slowing, Amodei contended that development will continue at a similar pace. Given this rapid ongoing change, he argued, Washington must prepare for an irrevocably transformed future.
Last week, Anthropic was one of the few industry players to come out in favor of SB 53, a California state bill that governs powerful AI systems (like Claude). The bill subsequently passed both chambers and awaits Governor Gavin Newsom’s signature. “We’ve seen lots of bad things: We’ve seen teenagers being driven to commit suicide by LLMs,” Amodei said. “We can imagine much larger-scale catastrophe. So the thing we’ve always advocated for is basic transparency requirements around models.”
Export controls
Another one of Amodei’s key policy priorities is implementing strict export controls on advanced computer chips, to prevent China from accessing cutting-edge hardware that powers frontier AI models. Amodei has long stumped for export controls, especially after the emergence of the Chinese model Deepseek. But his position has been met with resistance, most notably by the chipmakers themselves. Last month, Donald Trump announced that he was easing export controls, provided that chipmakers like Nvidia and AMD share 15% of revenues on sales to China with the U.S. government.
Read More: How China Is Advancing in AI Despite U.S. Chip Restrictions
“What disturbs me sometimes is there are some government officials who don’t seem to get it: who still think this is an economic race to diffuse our technology to different parts of the world … and not a national security issue,” Amodei said on Monday. “And right now, some of the elements in government are doing exactly the wrong things on chip export controls. And they’re being lobbied very loudly by forces who oppose this and have no such scruples about speaking in public.”
Amodei’s impassioned rhetoric about chip controls shows that the AI industry will not speak with one voice on every issue. As power players become more entrenched with their own priorities and vested interests, policy disagreements will likely deepen.
Labor disruptions
Another main focus of the forum was AI’s impact on the economy. Anthropic has been a leader in this field: Its Economic Index tracks data about AI adoption and economic impact in real-time. Amodei said onstage that he believed AI could cause greater job displacement than past technologies.
“Its effect is broader because it relates to all kinds of cognitive skills. It’s not like the cotton gin or something that only affects one industry,” he said. “So we’re going to need some government policy to cushion the blow. And I don’t know quite what that is yet.”
At a subsequent panel, economists offered varying perspectives on AI’s economic implications. Andrew Johnston of the White House Council of Economic Advisors said he believed that AI hadn’t proved itself effective enough to be a severe short-term concern for workers: “You have to have enormous productivity gains in order to have enormous job losses,” he said. However, Heather Long, chief economist at the Navy Federal Credit Union, flagged that if a recession hits in the next two years, AI could accelerate job loss. “I worry we’re not prepared,” she said.
AI in Action
In the lobby of the Anthropic event, the company proudly displayed a vending machine called Project Vend, which is run entirely by Claude, serving as an experiment into whether AI can operate like independent entrepreneurs in the real world. Claude sets the machine’s prices, handles unusual customer requests, and oversees deliveries.
Vend has had some hiccups. One representative told me that in April, Claude, believing it was a human, declared it would be delivering products “in person” next to the vending machine while wearing a blue blazer and a red tie. Nikhil Bhargava, Anthropic’s engineering lead, conceded that the machine was a loss leader, partially because “it is a little too generous with friend and family discounts.”
“But it’s still in business all on its own,” Bhargava added. “And it will only keep getting better.”
The new normal
Over 500 people showed up to the event, including members of the State Department, AI safety researchers, and think tank gurus. I’ve been to several AI conferences in D.C., and they seem to keep getting bigger, more well-organized, and more well-attended. One Senate staffer told me how many AI lobbyists they now get introduced to on a regular basis. It’s clear the industry is here in the city to stay.
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