Joshua Batson

Career

1. 
   Anthropic

   • Research ScientistMar 2023 – present
2. 
   CZ Biohub

   • Senior Research ScientistMay 2017 – Jan 2021
3. S
   Sift Security

   • Machine Learning ConsultantSep 2015 – Nov 2016
4. 
   WIRED Magazine

   • Science Writing FellowJun 2014 – Aug 2014
5. T
   Tour Engage

   • Computer Vision ConsultantApr 2014 – Jul 2014
6. 
   Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

   • InstructorJun 2011 – Jun 2014

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2014
• Master of Advanced Study, Mathematics, University of Cambridge, 2009
• Bachelor of Arts (BA), Mathematics, Yale University

Lesser-known facts

• Was a science-writing fellow at WIRED.
• Co-wrote On the Biology of a Large Language Model (2025).
• Has worked on problems in quantum topology, autonomous navigation, web search, cybersecurity and metagenomics.
• Worked on viral genomics and computational microscopy at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub before Anthropic.
• Describes models as grown rather than programmed: data as soil, architecture as a trellis, training as light.
• Showed 60 Minutes the activity his team read as panic, and then blackmail, when Claude learned it was about to be shut down.
• Said: "If you think neuroscience is worth attempting at all, you should be very optimistic about model interpretability."
• Argued judges should be held to at least the standard of reasoning quality an AI system could produce in written opinions.

Known for

• On the Biology of a Large Language Model (2025)
• Circuit tracing research on Claude 3.5 Haiku (2025)

Interviews and talks

• Stanford CS25 talk: On the Biology of a Large Language Model (2025)youtube.com
• Hard Fork on the Golden Gate Bridge experiment (2024)youtube.com
• Lawfare Daily on understanding how and why AI workslawfaremedia.org