Matt Clifford, the chair of the UK government’s advanced research unit, has been forced to resign after accepting a full-time position at the San Francisco artificial intelligence company Anthropic. Senior Members of Parliament had raised alarms that the move presented a clear conflict of interest.
Clifford announced last week that he would be joining the firm behind the Claude chatbot, where he plans to lead government engagement efforts outside the United States, including with the UK. However, he initially chose to remain in his leadership role at the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria), which is responsible for funding frontier science and technology projects across the country.
The disquiet among high-ranking MPs ultimately compelled Clifford to step down from his post at the ‘moonshot’ science and technology body.
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