Jacob Coxon, a departing Anthropic researcher, warned on CNN that self-improving AI poses an existential threat to humanity. Safety researchers at Anthropic and OpenAI share his views, and US politicians and Joe Rogan have picked up the topic. But cultural and financial interests are also at play behind these warnings, and the extinction scenario remains an extreme and contested position.

An Anthropic researcher has resigned from the company citing fears that AI labs are building systems that could kill human life in just a few years. | Trending

According to Coxon the systems could soon have superhuman strength and this poses a level of danger to everyone.