A day after unveiling a new AI model designed for US national security applications, humanity appointed national security expert Richard Fontaine to a long-term profit trust.
Human long-term profit trusts are governance mechanisms that help humanity promote security over profits, and have the power to elect a part of the company’s board of directors. Other members of the trust include effective altruistic CEO Zachary Robinson Center, Neil Buddy Shah of the Clinton Health Access Initiative, and President of Evidence Action Kanika Bahl.
In a statement, Humanity CEO Dario Amodei said that Fontaine’s employment was “involved by AI that (enhances) the ability of trusts to guide humanity through complex decisions.”
“Richard’s expertise comes at a critical time as AI capabilities continue to intersect with national security considerations,” Amodei continued. “I have long believed that maintaining responsible AI development leadership for democratic countries is essential to both global security and the common interest.”
As a council member, Fontaine, who has no financial interests with humanity, previously served as a foreign policy advisor to the late Senator John McCain and was a highly professor of public safety studies for Professor Georgetown. For more than six years, he led the Center for New American Security, a Washington, DC-based national security think tank.
Humanity is increasingly involved with US national security clients as they are looking for new sources of income. In November, the company collaborated with Amazon’s cloud computing arm Palantir and AWS, a key human partner and investor, to sell human AI to defend its customers.
To be clear, humanity is not the only top AI lab chasing defense contracts. Openai is trying to establish close ties with the US Department of Defense, and Meta recently revealed that it has made its Llama model available to defense partners. Meanwhile, Google has improved the version of Gemini AI that can work within categorized environments, and Cohere, which builds AI products primarily for businesses, is also working with Palantir to develop AI models.
Fontaine’s employment comes as human beef that raises executive ranks. In May, the company appointed Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings to its board.