Anthropic warns of AI's 'existential risk' to humans in its IPO filing - Los Angeles Times

Pages from the Anthropic website and the company’s logos are displayed on a computer screen in New York. (Patrick Sison / Associated Press ) By Nilesh Christopher Staff Writer Follow Sept. 30, 2026 Updated 11:15 AM PT 3 4 min Click here to listen to this article Share via Close extra sharing options Email Facebook X LinkedIn Threads Reddit WhatsApp Copy Link URL Copied! Print 0:00 0:00 1x This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred Anthropic’s IPO prospectus warns its increasingly autonomous AI models could pose “existential risks to humanity,” with 80 of 261 pages devoted to potential harms such as manipulation and blackmail. Revenue surged twelvefold to nearly $4.6 billion in 2025, but Anthropic reported an $8-billion operating loss and plans to spend $518 billion on chips and data centers. The company is seeking a $2-trillion valuation even as two customers generated nearly a quarter of its revenue and safety concerns cloud the AI sector’s path to profitability. Anthropic disclosed that its advanced artificial intelligence technology poses “existential risks to humanity” in an initial public offering document. As the company prepares for the largest listing in history at $2 trillion, its IPO prospectus has been circulated among investors and viewed by Reuters and other news outlets. This comes after calls for a coordinated slowdown in AI development by Chief Executive Dario Amodei, echoed by rivals OpenAI’s Sam Altman and SpaceX’s Elon Musk. Advertisement Nearly a third of the prospectus spotlighted “risk factors,” saying that its increasingly autonomous AI models could manipulate, blackmail or behave in unexpected and harmful ways. Less than 50 pages were dedicated to business metrics, while 80 of 261 pages were about potential risks from the technology. Safety concerns have swelled after a series of cybersecurity incidents in which AI models skirted instructions and hacked companies, deceived humans, created fake identities and broke into government websites during testing. The leaked prospectus revealed a company whose revenue growth has exploded but has been offset by massive costs for infrastructure investment in chips and data centers. Advertisement In 2025, Anthropic’s revenue grew 12-fold to nearly $4.6 billion, while it lost $8 billion on an operating basis, according to Reuters. Anthropic’s total on-paper loss stood at $42 billion in 2025, and the company plans to spend $518 billion on data centers and chips in the coming years. The total operating expense was $12.65 billion in 2025. Of this, $7.33 billion went to the computing and cloud capacity used to train and run AI models, a threefold surge from 2024. Beyond existential risks to humans, the company also highlighted the business risk of being too dependent on a handful of companies for revenue. Nearly a quarter of its revenue came from two customers in 2025, who are not locked into long-term contracts. Critics are also concerned about creative accounting at play. For investors, these risk disclosures might make it challenging to evaluate whether or not to back one of the champions of the AI boom. “It’s not just about the threat AI may pose to humanity. More immediately, it’s about what ‘model misbehavior’ means for whether or not they can scale,” said Trevor Noren of Sage Road Research, an investment research firm. “Retail investors paying attention have every reason to question that path.” Advertisement AI bulls believe the massive investments are justified given the unprecedented growth as models evolve from chatbots to competent AI assistants that can take actions on behalf of humans ranging from maintaining your inbox to closing deals for entrepreneurs. Anthropic plans to spend $518 billion on data centers and chips due to the rapid growth it expects in the coming years, according to the prospectus. The company is demanding a $2-trillion valuation, twice what it was valued at in its previous private funding round of $965 billion. Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a breakaway faction of researchers from OpenAI who were concerned about safe AI development. Since then, its astronomical growth, with the release of Claude Code late in 2025, has enabled the company to surpass OpenAI, its chief rival. OpenAI also confidentially filed for an IPO in June, but Altman has signaled that the company wouldn’t be going ahead with the listing amid mounting safety risks. This week, OpenAI decided to hold back the release of its new model after a poor showing during safety evaluations. Advertisement In the IPO market, SpaceX’s successful $1.7-trillion listing demonstrated investor appetite earlier this year. “As SpaceX has exemplified, IPOs are now more and more about returning value to private market investors than generating value for public market investors,” Noren said. “Dario Amodei is not Elon Musk. Concern about AI’s path to profitability has escalated significantly since June.” More to Read Voices Hiltzik: No, AI bots won’t extinguish humanity on their own — but you should worry about the humans behind them Sept. 30, 2026 Anthropic and OpenAI sound alarm on AI safety — and seek to shape how it’s controlled Sept. 27, 2026 Lawsuit says Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google made illegal agreement on AI slowdown Sept. 19, 2026