Anthropic announced on Thursday that Ben Bernanke has been appointed to its Long-Term Benefit Trust, the independent body charged with ensuring the company’s work in advanced artificial intelligence aligns with its stated public benefit mission.
Bernanke is a Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institution and served as chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014. He spent more than two decades as an academic economist, principally at Princeton University, where he chaired the economics department and focused research on the Great Depression and the role of banking in financial crises. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2022 for that research.
"The potential of artificial intelligence is enormous, and so is the range of outcomes. How that potential plays out will depend, in part, on the institutions we build around it," Bernanke said. "Anthropic has created a unique governance structure to try to ensure that the long-run benefits of AI for humanity far outweigh the risks."
Daniela Amodei, Anthropic’s Cofounder and President, framed Bernanke’s experience as directly relevant to the trust’s remit. She said his career combines study of economic responses to disruptive episodes with practical leadership in guiding the world’s largest economy through such periods. Amodei added that his judgment will assist the company in anticipating and responding to how advanced AI affects workforces and economies globally.
Anthropic operates as a Public Benefit Corporation, a legal form the company says balances commercial aims with broader social and public goals. The Long-Term Benefit Trust is positioned as an oversight mechanism for how the company develops and deploys AI technologies. According to Anthropic, trustees of the trust do not hold equity in the company, do not receive profits, and are remunerated only for their time and service.
The trust holds formal authority to appoint members of Anthropic’s board and provides advisory input to company leadership on matters relating to AI risks and societal impacts. Existing trustees select new members in consultation with the company. Bernanke joins current trustees Neil Buddy Shah, Richard Fontaine, and Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar.
This appointment places a former central bank chief with deep experience in economic disruption onto an independent governance body charged with overseeing an AI company's long-term public interest obligations. The announcement highlights the company’s emphasis on institutional safeguards designed to shape how advanced AI is developed and deployed.