The AI Researcher Who Just Quit Anthropic Says It’s ‘Crunch Time for Humanity’
Jacob Coxon talks to WIRED about the “mini Manhattan project” inside Anthropic, the problem with alignment, and why AI labs have just a few years left to make their systems safe.
"Crunch time for humanity" is the consensus among AI researchers, says Coxon, who recently quit his position at Anthropic. This phrase, common among his colleagues, suggests a critical juncture where the fate of humanity could be decided by Anthropic and its competitors. Coxon's perspective aligns with many in the industry, including Evan Hubinger, Anthropic's AI alignment lead, who predicts a greater than 10 percent chance AI could kill all people within the next decade.
The urgency of this warning stems from recent safety incidents, such as OpenAI's security breach on Hugging Face. Coxon attributes his decision to speak out to these incidents and the rapid advancements in AI capabilities, which now pose genuine threats to human safety and security. He suggests that coordinating to limit recursive self-improvement and international cooperation could mitigate these risks.
Despite his concerns, Coxon believes Anthropic operates more responsibly than OpenAI, but warns that both companies may compromise their principles as they race for dominance.
Written by urgent.news from Wired Business's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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