The man who wrote the UK’s AI Opportunities Action Plan is leaving the government research agency he chaired. He announced it five days after taking a job at Anthropic. The resignation itself is not the interesting part. The arrangement it undoes had already been reviewed and cleared by a government department.
Matt Clifford will step down as chair of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, the UK’s taxpayer-funded body for high-risk science. ARIA, as it is known, funds frontier work in areas from neurotechnology to climate science. He set out the decision on Monday in a post on LinkedIn.
The Guardian reported that he had been forced to stand down, under pressure from senior MPs. Clifford presented it as his own call. Both versions can be read from the same facts, and the gap between them is worth noting.
“Having completed my first full term last month, I have decided to step down to ensure my new role at Anthropic doesn’t become a distraction from ARIA’s incredible work,” he wrote.
The safeguards lasted five days
