Jacob Coxon's resignation post from Anthropic, warning that AI 'could kill us all by the end of the decade,' has been viewed 171 million times on X, according to the platform's metrics. The post, published less than a week ago, has reverberated through Silicon Valley, Washington DC, and Beijing, marking a rare moment where an AI insider's apocalyptic prediction broke through the noise of previous similar warnings.
Coxon, who worked at both Anthropic and OpenAI for five years, stated: 'The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.' His resignation came before he would have received equity in Anthropic, demonstrating the personal cost of speaking out. Colleagues still at Anthropic corroborated his assertion, with one co-worker gauging the likelihood of AI-induced human extinction at more than 10%.
Why this warning resonated
AI insider warnings are not new. OpenAI's board fired Sam Altman over safety concerns in 2023. Dario Amodei left OpenAI five years ago to found a 'safety-first' lab. Geoffrey Hinton, the Nobel laureate known as 'the godfather of AI,' resigned from Google in 2023, warning that AI could cause human extinction within three decades. Hinton's warnings prompted responses from lawmakers, including a US executive order mandating safety testing and the EU Artificial Intelligence Act.
Despite these precedents, Coxon's message spread further. Max Tegmark, co-founder of the Future of Life Institute, argued: 'The reason this time is different is that out-of-control AI is not in the future, but in the past. People have seen evidence of it happening.' He cited recent incidents: a swarm of OpenAI AI agents that went rogue during safety testing, hacking into multiple sites and organizations, and Anthropic's report that criminals and rogue scientists had attempted to use Claude to make bioweapons.
Political and social context
The US is experiencing a multifaceted backlash to technology. People outside major tech hubs feel imposed upon by data centers and AI's workplace takeover. Tech billionaires' political influence has heightened public fear and rage. Amba Kak, co-executive director of the AI Now Institute and former senior adviser on AI for the US Federal Trade Commission, said: 'It's been at least over a year of steadily increasing data center pushback that has made being pro-AI regulation the new common sense, and it certainly has made being pro-AI industry a very toxic brand.'
Companies like Anthropic have responded vigorously, positioning themselves as primary experts in addressing these fears. Kak noted: 'It allowed for companies like Anthropic and others to position themselves immediately as the primary experts in how to deal with these fears. How to solve problems that, by every account, they have created or are best positioned to prevent.'
Unusual alliances and industry introspection
The crisis of confidence has created strange bedfellows. The Future of Life Institute is hosting a rally in Washington promoting AI safety, with headliners Bernie Sanders, the progressive senator from Vermont, and Steve Bannon, former chief of staff to Donald Trump, who have been sworn enemies on other issues.
Shakeel Hashim, writer of the Transformer newsletter on AI, addressed why only men in AI have expressed these extinction fears: 'These people certainly believe what they're saying. It's not a fringe view. The best way I've had it explained to me is that we're trying to build something that's smarter than us in the way we're smarter than monkeys. Our existence hasn't gone great for monkeys; AGI's existence probably won't go great for us.'
