A charity helping shape Australia’s approach to artificial intelligence and copyright has received more than $1 million from philanthropic funds with personal and financial ties to Anthropic, an AI giant that would benefit directly from the organisation’s proposal.
Good Ancestors, a charity founded in 2022, says it was set up to help Australia’s leaders act in the interests of future generations, and works on issues such as AI safety and pandemic prevention.
It has become one of the most active voices in Australia’s AI policy debate, making submissions to federal and state inquiries and securing a seat on the attorney-general’s Copyright and Artificial Intelligence Reference Group.
Australia is deciding how copyright should apply to training AI models, which can generate billions of dollars for their operators but have largely been developed overseas using vast amounts of material taken from their creators without any compensation.
The government has ruled out a US-style exception that would let companies train on copyrighted work for free, leaving the reference group to weigh alternatives that give creators a way to refuse or be paid, while AI firms press for cheap access. The outcome will decide whether local creators are ever paid when their work helps build AI, and whether any of that training happens on Australian soil.
Financial statements filed with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission and publicly available grant databases show a funding lineage that arts and rightsholder groups say raises questions about whose interests the organisation represents.
In 2024, Good Ancestors received $US171,000 ($243,000) from the Survival and Flourishing Fund, which is primarily backed by Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn. Tallinn led Anthropic’s $US125 million Series A funding round in 2021 and remains an investor in the company.
In December 2024, Good Ancestors received a further $US580,236 from Open Philanthropy, now known as Coefficient Giving, earmarked for its Australian policy advocacy. Coefficient Giving was co-founded by Holden Karnofsky, who served as its chief executive until April 2024 and joined Anthropic in January 2025. Karnofsky is married to Anthropic president and co-founder Daniela Amodei.
An Anthropic spokesperson said: “Anthropic PBC has not funded Good Ancestors and we have not asked them to lobby the government on our behalf.”
There is no suggestion Anthropic directed the grants or has any formal relationship with Good Ancestors. The Survival and Flourishing Fund and Coefficient Giving give widely and globally to organisations working across many causes, and their backers hold stakes in numerous technology companies, not only Anthropic. Both funds were contacted for comment.
Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei met Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra to sign a memorandum of understanding committing the company to align any future Australian operations with the federal government’s National Data Centre Expectations, the first such agreement under the National AI Plan.
Five weeks later, Good Ancestors circulated a consultation paper proposing an “AI Training Permit” that would authorise companies to train AI models in Australia with certainty they “would not be subject to copyright restrictions”. Permit holders would pay a tiered fee into consolidated revenue, respect an opt-out mechanism for Australian rights holders, and comply with the National Data Centre Expectations, the same framework Anthropic signed up to in its memorandum. They would also receive government help accelerating the time it takes to get new data centres connected to the electricity grid and running.
Claire Pullen, chief executive of the Australian Writers’ Guild, said Good Ancestors was advocating for a proposal that was in its backers’ interests.
“It’s clear whose interests they are trying to look after and it’s not Australian creators, it’s big tech,” she said.
“It’s so frustrating that we could be working on solutions that work for Australia and protect our copyright, and instead we get ‘tech-washing’ and no solution to the problem of foreign companies stealing from Australian creators.”
Nicholas Pickard, executive director of public affairs at music rights body APRA AMCOS, said using philanthropic networks to influence regulation was a long-established lobbying tactic.
“Astroturfing regulatory processes through philanthropic networks is one of the oldest plays in the corporate lobbying book,” he said.
Good Ancestors chief executive Greg Sadler rejected any suggestion the charity was acting in the interests of AI companies, saying it received “no funding, sponsorship or other financial benefit from any AI company” and formed its positions independently. He said the Survival and Flourishing Fund and Coefficient Giving grants were won through open application processes and that no donor had tried to direct the organisation’s work.
“When we write policy papers highlighting the risks of AI and calling for regulation, people say we’re anti-tech,” Sadler said. “Now that we’ve written a consultation paper seeking views on how Australia could benefit from AI, we’re accused of being a mouthpiece for big tech. It’s not true or credible.” He said Good Ancestors had engaged with Pickard’s organisation, APRA AMCOS, on AI risks for more than a year, and had supported the music body’s own 2024 paper that raised transparency concerns about generative AI.
Sadler also pointed to a multi-year record of arguing for tighter AI regulation, including peer-reviewed safety research, a civil-society contribution to the International AI Safety Report 2026, work with the UK’s AI Security Institute and, last week, evidence to a parliamentary committee calling for mandatory reporting of AI accidents.
This masthead is owned by Nine, which has advocated for copyright laws to apply to AI companies.
A spokesman for Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said the department independently determined membership and, because the group was a consultation forum with no decision-making power, did not require participants to disclose funding sources or conflicts of interest. Commercial or financial relationships did not affect participation if an organisation otherwise met the criteria, the spokesman said.
Rowland’s spokesman said opportunities from AI should not come at the expense of the creative and media industries, and that copyright deals already struck with Australian rights holders should continue. The government encouraged the technology and creative sectors to find “sensible and workable solutions to support innovation while ensuring creators are fairly compensated”.
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David Swan is the technology editor for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously technology editor for The Australian newspaper.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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