Member of Staff, AI & Rule of Law

Details

Anthropic’s mission is to create reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. The Anthropic Institute is an externally-facing organization within Anthropic that studies how the AI systems we build affect the economy, democratic institutions, and the people and organizations that interact with our systems. The AI & Rule of Law team investigates how increasingly powerful AI systems interact with constitutional democratic institutions (courts, legislatures, electoral systems, oversight bodies, and legal frameworks) and seeks strategies — technical and policy — to protect democratic freedoms.

Responsibilities

• Conduct early, high-stakes research into how AI affects constitutional democratic institutions and the rule of law.
• Develop AI safety evaluation frameworks with a legal alignment lens (assess whether frontier AI systems behave consistently with constitutional norms, due process, and rule-of-law principles).
• Analyze institutional vulnerabilities where AI creates novel pressure points in democratic governance and propose policy and technical mitigations.
• Map novel legal issues created by capable AI systems (liability, agency, institutional authority, etc.).
• Identify or develop applications that could bolster democratic processes (civic participation, legislative capacity, judicial function).
• Use Claude aggressively and creatively as a research tool, thought partner, and subject of inquiry throughout the work.
• Produce rigorous, public-facing work (scholarship, policy analysis, government output, or published writing).

Requirements

Minimum qualifications

• Deep expertise in both AI and at least one of: law, government, political science, or public policy.
• A primary degree in law, political science, or a closely related field at the Ph.D. level or equivalent — OR extensive government experience at a leadership level.
• Demonstrated ability to produce rigorous, public-facing work (scholarship, policy analysis, government output, or a published body of writing).

Preferred qualifications

• At least five years of relevant experience in academia, industry, or government.
• Experience at the intersection of legal or political theory and emerging technology.
• A track record of working across disciplines (e.g., a legal scholar who has engaged seriously with AI, or a policy official who has worked on technology governance).
• Comfort operating with significant autonomy in an environment where problems are new and the playbook is still being written.

Compensation

• Annual Salary: $295,000 - $345,000 USD

Logistics

• Location: San Francisco, CA (Anthropic headquarters).
• Location-based hybrid policy: staff are expected to be in one of our offices at least 25% of the time (some roles may require more time in office).
• Minimum education: Bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and/or experience (role prefers Ph.D. or equivalent as noted above).
• Minimum years of experience: will correlate with internal job level requirements.
• Visa sponsorship: Anthropic states they do sponsor visas and will make reasonable efforts to obtain a visa if an offer is made; they retain an immigration lawyer to help.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation and benefits, optional equity donation matching, generous vacation and parental leave, flexible working hours, and access to office space in San Francisco.
• Guidance on candidate AI usage is provided for the application process.