{
  "id": 6495880,
  "title": "'Gambling with our lives': AI researcher quits Anthropic",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/09/gambling-with-our-lives-ai-researcher-quits-anthropic-6495880",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-09-09T23:32:03.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Korea Times",
    "slug": "the-korea-times",
    "url": "https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/world/20260910/gambling-with-our-lives-ai-researcher-quits-anthropic"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "SAN FRANCISCO — An artificial intelligence researcher who recently parted ways with OpenAI to work for Anthropic has announced his departure from the field, alleging both U.S. companies are recklessly gambling with humanity's future as they compete to create self-improving AI models. Jacob Coxon, 27, has spent the past three years pretraining AI models, initially at OpenAI and subsequently at Anthropic, which he deemed more cautious in its approach. Pretraining involves AI models absorbing massive amounts of data.\n\nNeither corporation appears to be exercising responsible practices, Coxon stated on Tuesday. \"They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives,\" he asserted in a post on X. He further explained in his post that the AI developers are genuinely convinced that the technology could result in humanity's annihilation by the end of the decade.\n\nCoxon emphasized that this is not a marketing ploy, adding, \"Superintelligence is the theoretical point when AI's capabilities surpass human intelligence.\" Anthropic's safety executive, Evan Hubinger, echoed Coxon's concerns on X, stating, \"We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!\" He further estimated the risk to be over 10 percent in the coming years.",
  "summary": "SAN FRANCISCO — An artificial intelligence researcher who left OpenAI to join Anthropic has decided to leave the industry, accusing both U.S. companies of \"gambling 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…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 3,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "The Korea Times",
        "title": "'Gambling with our lives': AI researcher quits Anthropic",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/09/gambling-with-our-lives-ai-researcher-quits-anthropic",
        "published": "2026-09-09T22:57:03.000Z"
      },
      {
        "outlet": "Al Jazeera",
        "title": "Anthropic discloses 4th AI hacking incident as researcher quits over safety",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/10/anthropic-discloses-4th-ai-hacking-incident-as-researcher-quits-over",
        "published": "2026-09-10T05:30:41.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}