The chair of the UK government’s “moonshot” science and technology research unit has been forced to stand down after taking a job with the San Francisco AI firm Anthropic, after warnings from senior MPs that the move created a “clear conflict of interest”.
Matt Clifford announced last week that he was taking a full-time job working for the company behind the Claude chatbot, “leading its engagement” with governments outside the US – including the UK. But he retained his leadership at the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria), which funds frontier science and tech projects.
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