AI is progressing ever faster with better and more capable models being released at frenetic pace, and discussions over how this technology will be managed are getting just as animated as well.
Elon Musk has taken aim at Amanda Askell, the Anthropic researcher credited with shaping Claude’s moral reasoning. The confrontation began after The Wall Street Journal published a profile of Askell on February 14, describing how Anthropic has entrusted her with the task of endowing its AI chatbot, Claude, with a sense of right and wrong. The article, headlined “Meet the One Woman Anthropic Trusts to Teach AI Morals,” highlighted her outsized influence over the ethical framework of one of the most widely used AI systems in the world.
Musk responded to the coverage with a broadside that appeared directed at Askell personally: “Those without children lack a stake in the future.” The post garnered 19,000 likes and over a million views.
Askell replied directly and calmly. “I think it depends on how much you care about people in general vs. your own kin,” she wrote. “I do intend to have kids, but I still feel like I have a strong personal stake in the future because I care a lot about people thriving, even if they’re not related to me.”
Musk was unmoved. In a follow-up post that has since accumulated 36,000 views, he doubled down: “You cannot understand my point until you have a child, anymore than someone who has never experienced true love can understand love.”
The exchange encapsulates a broader ideological fault line in the AI industry. Musk — who has repeatedly argued that low birth rates represent an existential civilizational risk — framed parenthood as a prerequisite for genuine long-term thinking. Askell’s response offered a counterpoint rooted in an expansive, utilitarian conception of moral concern: that caring deeply about the welfare of people in general, whether or not they share your bloodline, constitutes its own form of stake in the future.
Askell had joined Anthropic after a stint at OpenAI and has become one of the more publicly visible figures in the relatively niche but consequential field of AI alignment and character design. Her work involves defining the values, reasoning style, and ethical guardrails that shape how Claude responds to millions of users.
The two perspectives are two philosophical sides of how such issues could be handled as AI systems become more capable. Musk seems to favour a skin-in-the-game approach — someone with children would be far more incentivized to ensure the welfare of coming generations that someone without. In contrast, Askell seems to be saying that even as a non-involved observer, she could possibly keep humanity’s future interests at the forefront while designing AI systems. The two are also diametrically different in their approach to children — Musk has had at least 14 known children, while Askell, 37, has none. And as the stakes get higher, issues like these — and the motivations of the people at the forefront of AI development — could only become more commonplace in the AI world.