'They're playing with our lives': AI researcher quits Anthropic

An artificial intelligence researcher who left OpenAI to join Anthropic has decided to leave the industry, accusing both US companies of "playing with our lives" in the race to develop AI models capable of self-improvement.

Jacob Coxon, 27, spent the past three years pretraining AI models, first at OpenAI and then, this year, at its rival Anthropic, which he considered more cautious in its approach.

Pretraining is the stage where AI models absorb vast quantities of data.

"Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives," Coxon said on Tuesday.

"The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade," he said in a post on X.

Superintelligence is the theoretical point when AI's capabilities exceed human intelligence.

Anthropic safety executive Evan Hubinger backed up Coxon on X.

"We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!" he said, adding that he estimated that risk at more than 10 per cent over the next decade.

Read: AI could pose 'existential' risk to humanity, UN rights chief warns

Hubinger said Anthropic is "trying its best", but does not yet have a plan to ensure an AI system that surpasses human capabilities would obey its creators. He said there was a "low" risk of that happening with current models.

Clarifying his statement in a subsequent post, Hubinger emphasised that current AI models deployed today carry low immediate risk. Instead, his primary concern stemmed from future superintelligence generated through recursive self-improvement — a process where AI systems autonomously design and enhance subsequent generations of AI at an accelerating pace.

"What I am worried about is superintelligence arising from recursive self-improvement, as we have said is happening faster than we thought," Hubinger noted, citing Anthropic's latest risk assessments.

Coxon's resignation comes as Anthropic prepares for its market debut, following a summer marked by unauthorised hacks carried out by AI tools during testing.

The two companies did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment.

AI leaders say so-called "recursive self-improvement", a stage where AI systems could essentially design and train the next generation of AI with little human involvement, is drawing near.

Coxon considers Anthropic's efforts genuine but said he believes no company could responsibly develop an AI that surpasses humans without government intervention or a coordinated slowdown.

"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," he said.

In February, Anthropic removed a pledge from its safety charter to halt model development if it failed to control its risks.

Read More: Unchecked AI progress may pose catastrophic risks, UN panel warns

It argued that if it unilaterally paused its work, its less cautious rivals would dominate the industry, making it less safe overall.

At the end of July, more than 1,000 tech industry employees, including Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei, called on Washington to support a coordinated slowdown in developing the most advanced AI systems.

OpenAI halted training of its latest models for two weeks in August before resuming it under tighter controls.

On Sunday, OpenAI's chief scientist, Jakub Pachocki, called for "extreme caution".

"International coordination on future AI development needs to become a top priority for governments around the world," he said in a blog post.

AI models are not regulated by federal law in the United States.

In September, Senator Bernie Sanders and Democratic Representative Greg Casar introduced a bill seeking to suspend AI development until a federal regulator is created.