Multiple current and former Anthropic employees warned — and admitted — on Tuesday that the researchers building new AI models believe the technology could lead to humanity’s destruction by the end of the decade, reflecting the industry’s frenzy over reining in rapid development.
Jacob Coxon, a former AI researcher at Anthropic, wrote on X that he resigned from the company on Tuesday because he believed the Dario Amodei-led company and OpenAI, his former employer, were “gambling with our lives” in how they improved the technology.
“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” Coxon wrote. “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.”
Anthropic did not respond to an immediate request for comment, but Coxon’s warnings were surprisingly affirmed by Evan Hubinger, Anthropic’s alignment scene lead, and Samuel Marks, who runs the company‘s scalable oversight division.
Hubinger wrote the company did “earnestly believe AI could kill all humans” and that he thought it was a greater than 10% risk “within the next desk.”
