ControlAI says it sponsored nine paid videos and helped make nine unpaid ones on AI extinction risk. It bought 60–90-second ad slots; topic was agreed in advance. Its account says creators retained main-video editorial control subject to two requirements: no endorsement of an AI company and citation of a named extinction or superintelligence statement. It also describes nonbinding script review, possible cancellation fees and sponsor disclosure. This documents paid advocacy, not a finding that every AI-risk voice was paid or that Sabine Hossenfelder signed a deal. ControlAI's account.
Dario and Daniela Amodei are siblings and Anthropic co-founders. Holden Karnofsky calls Daniela his wife; that makes him Dario's brother-in-law. Karnofsky was Open Philanthropy's CEO before stepping down in 2023 and later appears on an Anthropic risk-report byline. These are public family and career facts, not proof of METR control or an undisclosed transfer. TIME · Holden interview, p. 28 · Open Philanthropy leadership account.
METR reports about $71m in recent commitments, says it accepts no frontier-lab funding or staff-directed donations, and acknowledges substantial free model tokens. It lists Anthropic among five labs providing evaluation access and tokens. Its donor list does not establish an Anthropic cash grant. Funding update · METR About.
The sharper document is METR's review of Anthropic's February 2026 risk report. METR criticized the report's evidence and survey while agreeing, based partly on outside evidence, with its very-low-risk conclusion for Opus 4.6 R&D automation. In its process appendix, METR says Anthropic reviewed publication under an NDA and had a general veto during this pilot. METR says no redactions happened, published its criticism, and wants future review limited to sensitive-information redactions. A contractual veto is an independence risk; this record does not show that it was exercised or that METR's conclusion was purchased.
Open Philanthropy's own account places Karnofsky in an effective-altruist institution. Gebru and Torres's TESCREAL paper groups transhumanism, Extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, Rationalism, effective altruism and longtermism into a critical historical argument. It is not a membership list. A 2024 TIME profile reported Anthropic saying neither Amodei sibling personally identified as EA, while acknowledging sympathy for some ideas. Documented relationships and policy proposals can be examined without converting an ideological label into proof of a coordinated bloc.
The next records worth asking for are sponsorship contracts and actual video disclosures; METR's evaluator agreement and future publication-rights terms; and grant records that would identify any claimed directed money flow. Family proximity is a lead, not the answer.