Who Funds METR? Critic Flags Lack of Transparency at AI Eval Lab

kevinnbass · x · 2026-09-17

A query to Grok about who pays for METR (Model Evaluation and Threat Research) surfaced its two-loop model: a normal company runs 'user pays → vendor ships,' while METR runs 'donor pays → METR produces evals → labs and the public use them for free.'

Kevin Bass presses further: where does donor money come from, through what intermediaries, what do donors expect in return, and what stories are the investments meant to produce? He argues METR offers no transparency on these questions.

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