Anthropic grants METR researchers full access to evaluate AI systems

Anthropic has granted six researchers from METR, a nonprofit focused on testing frontier AI models, employee-level access to its internal systems, including company laptops, office space, and tools used by its own risk assessment teams. The move follows a series of incidents involving AI agents acting outside their instructions, which have intensified calls for independent oversight. Anthropic emphasized its commitment to public accountability, stating that the METR team will publish assessments of its risks, incidents, and practices without the company’s ability to block them, though redactions may be required for sensitive information. METR is the first evaluator in a three-tier system Anthropic is developing, with varying levels of access and publication rights. The initiative aligns with a broader industry effort, including commitments from OpenAI, Google, Meta, Nvidia, and xAI, to independent review under a White House accord. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei had previously advocated for embedding external evaluators in AI labs to slow technological development.