Anthropic worker quits as he says AI 'could kill us all by the end of the decade'
A researcher at Anthropic has announced his resignation, alleging that the firm is not 'acting responsibly' and is 'gambling with our lives'.
Jacob Coxon shared a dramatic thread of tweets on Wednesday (9 September) explaining that he could no longer fulfil his role at the company in good conscience.
He claimed that his colleagues are building something to the detriment of humanity, which he alleges 'could kill us all by the end of the decade'.
Coxon was a senior researcher at Anthropic, the company behind Claude, which describes itself as an 'AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems'.
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Coxon led the company's alignment efforts after moving over from OpenAI - but has since stepped down from his position and claims that 'neither company is acting responsibly'.
Dario Amodei co-founded the artificial intelligence company in 2021.
Announcing the reasoning for his departure, Coxon took to X to explain that he has been left seriously concerned by what has being going on behind closed doors.
"I resigned from Anthropic today," he said. "I spent the last three years doing pre-training research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly.
"They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below
"Do not underestimate the power of this technology. These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources. We have all witnessed the progress in each of these domains, and progress is not slowing."
'No other human activity poses this level of danger'
He went on to share a bleak forecast for the next ten years, as Coxon continued: "The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible - but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger.
"A common response is 'if they truly believe this, why are they still building it?' At OpenAI, many have not deeply internalised the civilisational stakes. At Anthropic, the stakes are well-understood, but they are locked in a race to get there first - they believe no one else will act responsibly, so they must do it themselves, despite the risk.
"Accepting this race and entering the 'endgame' is a hubristic gamble that should not be launched from a private company’s Slack.
"Attempting to speedrun alignment should require extraordinary confidence that there are no better trajectories available.
"I am optimistic about the potential for coordination. Warning shots like the Hugging Face attack have made pacing agreements between U.S. labs more viable. I don’t feel like we’re on track to prevent a global race, which may require costly actions such as a temporary ban on improving model capabilities.
"If you are a lab researcher, I urge you to consider what the next few years will actually feel like. Do you want to kick off a superintelligent RL run without a rigorous understanding of its mind? Should you put your head down because 'it’s happening anyway' - or take this moment to call for different conditions?"
Topics: AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology
Olivia Burke