Anthropic employee spectacularly quits, accuses company of "gambling with our lives"

An artificial intelligence researcher quit his job at Anthropic on Tuesday and accused the company, and its chief rival OpenAI, of grossly unethical behaviour.

His explosive claims have set the internet alight with concerns about the aggressive development artificial intelligence.

Jacob Coxon, who has worked as a researcher at both companies, said in a post on X that he resigned because Anthropic and OpenAI are “gambling with our lives.” 

He said the people building AI “earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

“Do not underestimate the power of this technology,” Coxon wrote. 

“These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources.”

Screenshot of part of Coxon's post on X

Coxon continued in his post:

“These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionise any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources.

“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.”

“Scaling at maximum speed”

Coxon’s post, which has been liked more than 120 million times, has resonated with millions as the debate about whether AI can be safely developed and controlled rages around the world.

Anthropic and OpenAI both are hurtling toward potentially historic initial public offerings, while releasing increasingly advanced model - prompting many researchers and experts to calling for a coordinated slowdown.

OpenAI’s chief scientist, Jakub Pachocki, posted on Sunday, warning that no AI company has “solved alignment and monitoring to a sufficient degree to continue responsibly scaling at maximum speed for much longer."

He added, “I expect and hope for voluntary slowdowns to become commonplace until shared safety bars are established.

“And I believe that international coordination on future AI development needs to become a top priority for governments around the world.”

Mr. Coxon is right.

The very people building this technology admit that it could threaten the future of humanity.

That is why I will soon be introducing legislation to ban superintelligence and pause AI development. https://t.co/oRmlNTqag6

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) September 9, 2026

Further, Anthropic’s alignment science lead, Evan Hubinger, replied to the post on X and supported Coxon.

“Jacob is correct here we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!”  Hubinger said.

“I personally think it is >10% (a more than 10 per cent chance) within the next decade.

“I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to.”

Hubinger later caveated his response by saying, “I think the risk from present models is low”.

He explained, “What I am worried about is superintelligence arising from recursive self-improvement, as we have said is happening faster than we thought.”