Jack Clark
REPORTED ON AI. THEN BUILT ANTHROPIC.
THE DEAL
Clark reported the machinery under the internet at ZDNet, became Bloomberg's neural-network specialist, then walked inside the lab: OpenAI policy director, Anthropic co-founder.
SOURCES: U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and TechnologyImport AIAnthropicAnthropicAnthropic
AT A GLANCE
- EDUCATION
- University of East Anglia · English Literature with Creative Writing · BA · upper-second-class honoursU.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
THE ARCHIVE
History · cartoons · headlines
THE TIMELINE7 sourced events
THE REPORTER WHO WALKED INSIDE THE LAB
Clark reported the machinery under the internet at ZDNet, became Bloomberg's neural-network specialist, then walked inside the lab: OpenAI policy director, Anthropic co-founder. He now runs the Anthropic Institute — the frontier lab's internal think tank — and still writes Import AI, the newsletter he kept running through every job change.
Jul 2010
HE STARTS BY REPORTING THE MACHINERY UNDER THE INTERNET
Clark began as a reporter at ZDNet UK, covering enterprise technology before the modern AI boom. The beat put him close to the computing infrastructure that would later become the substrate for large-scale machine learning.
SOURCES: U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technologyreported
Feb 2013
THE DATACENTER BEAT TURNS INTO DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS AND AI
At The Register, Clark covered distributed systems, supercomputers, databases, novel memory technologies, and artificial intelligence. The infrastructure reporter was moving steadily toward the models being built on top of that infrastructure.
SOURCES: U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technologyreported
Aug 2014
BLOOMBERG MAKES HIM THE NEURAL-NETWORK REPORTER
Clark joined Bloomberg and BusinessWeek, initially covering enterprise companies and later Google, while specializing in and leading Bloomberg's artificial-intelligence coverage as deep learning became a central technology story.
SOURCES: U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and TechnologyreportedImport AIfirst-party
Sep 2016
THE REPORTER WALKS INSIDE THE LAB
Clark joined OpenAI as Policy Director, taking responsibility for policy, communications, strategy and safety research, and external affairs. He had moved from explaining frontier AI from outside the labs to helping shape one from within.
SOURCES: U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technologyreported
2017
HE HELPS BUILD A PUBLIC SCOREBOARD FOR AI
Clark became a founding member of Stanford's AI Index, helping create a recurring public record of progress in artificial intelligence while continuing to write Import AI.
SOURCES: Import AIfirst-party
May 28, 2021
HE HELPS FOUND ANTHROPIC
Clark became a co-founder of Anthropic as the new AI safety and research company emerged publicly in 2021. The journalist-turned-policy executive was now helping build a frontier lab of his own.
2026
THE POLICY ARM BECOMES AN INSTITUTE
Anthropic made Clark Head of Public Benefit and put him in charge of the Anthropic Institute, an internal think tank studying the societal consequences of frontier AI using information available from inside a leading model developer.
