“…how did you survive this technological adolescence without destroying yourself?”Contact (1997), quoted by Dario Amodei in The Adolescence of Technology

Admit one nation · General election · Nov 7, 2028

DraftThe Alignment Ticket 2028

Dario Amodei&Daniela Amodei

No.000000A²2028

We the Aligned

in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Wisdom in the Age of Machines, insure that powerful AI answers to the People, initiate a Race to the top, not to be First but to lift everyone up, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do respectfully urge

Dario AmodeiDaniela Amodei

to run for President & Vice President of the United States of America

Add your name beneath the preamble

… tickets punched

Why “aligned”?It’s Daniela’s word for the two of them: Since we were kids, we’ve always felt very aligned. It’s also the word for the job ahead: making sure powerful AI, and our leaders, serve the people. We believe the two of them together are best capable to lead us through this defining period. source

Why a race?Dario Amodei describes Anthropic’s strategy as an effort to make safety something on which AI companies compete. In other words, to create a race to the top. Not a race to be first, but a race to be best, pulling everyone else up along the way. We think the country needs to run the same race. source

Their path

How they got here

1980s · San Francisco

The Mission

Two kids in the Mission District. A father, Riccardo, who worked leather by hand. A mother, Elena, who managed the building of libraries. Craft and knowledge.

Then a loss that set the direction for everything after.

“My own father died of a disease that was cured just a few years after his death, and I myself survived an early-stage cancer that would not have been treatable even fifty years ago.”
Dario Amodei, We Must Pace the Frontier

2000–2020

Two strands

Dario

U.S. Physics Olympiad team
Physics at Caltech and Stanford
Ph.D. in biophysics, Princeton
Baidu, Google Brain, OpenAI. Co-author of the scaling laws.
Warned the Senate on AI and bioweapons

Daniela

UC Santa Cruz: English literature, on a classical flute scholarship
Global health work in Uganda
A winning congressional campaign, then Capitol Hill
Stripe, then OpenAI, ending as VP of Safety and Policy

2021

The founding team

They and a handful of colleagues left to build AI differently at Anthropic, as a public benefit corporation. Five years later, every co-founder is still there.

Bloomberg Tech Summit, 2024

Now

Treebeard is waking up

AI moves exponentially. Policy moves at the speed of trees. The next administration will make choices about a technology that may be more powerful than any government.

“Treebeard and his forest are waking up.”
Dario Amodei, Policy on the AI Exponential (2026)

2029 →

Machines of loving grace

The destination isn’t fear. It’s fifty to a hundred years of medical progress in five to ten, and democracy that comes out stronger.

“Fear is one kind of motivator, but it’s not enough: we need hope as well.”
Dario Amodei, Machines of Loving Grace

Receipts

What it cost them

Anyone can promise. These are the times it cost them something.

Exhibit A

Held back their strongest model

They kept their most capable model from general release because of its cyber capabilities, and gave defenders a path forward that the entire AI industry has followed.

Project Glasswing, Apr 2026

Exhibit B

Said no to the Pentagon

Asked to drop limits on mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons: we cannot in good conscience accede to their request.

Statement, Feb 2026

Exhibit C

No ads

They ruled out advertising so that their assistant’s only incentive is to give a helpful answer.

Announcement, Feb 2026

Exhibit D

Handed the board to a trust

An independent trust appoints directors, and its appointees now make up a majority of the Board.

Announcement, Apr 2026

Exhibit E

Pledged 80%

All of Anthropic’s co-founders have pledged to donate 80% of our wealth.

Dario Amodei, Jan 2026

Quick poll

What should the ticket run on?

Pick one. No sign-up.

On the back of every ticket

An open letter

Dear Dario and Daniela,

You have never said you want to run for anything. This letter is not a demand, and nobody who signed it expects a reply.

You warned the public about powerful AI before it was popular, and you gave up money and advantage to make it safer. One of you wrote that when the risks are real, the remedy is what it always is in a democracy: citizens making their case and banding together. This is us doing that.

The next president will make decisions about a technology that may be more powerful than any government. We would like those decisions made by people who understand its potential impact. We think that’s the two of you, together.

You aren’t perfect people. Nobody is, and a more perfect Future was never going to be built by perfect people. But we believe you are the perfect candidates to meet this moment.

Please consider it.