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Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigns over AI extinction fears

724 points · 1001 comments#anthropic#ai safety#resignation#recursive self-improvement

Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned after four months, two months before his equity would have vested, citing safety concerns about self-improving AI and extinction risks. He called for pacing agreements between labs and international coordination to limit recursive self-improvement, describing a 'mini Manhattan project' inside Anthropic.

Coverage timeline

  1. Hacker Newsyurivish
    I resigned from Anthropic todayHN
  2. Hacker Newstaubek
    Gambling with our lives: AI researcher quits Anthropic with warning about safetyHN
  3. TechCrunch AIRebecca Bellan
    ‘Gambling with our lives’: Anthropic researcher quits, warns against self-improving AI

    Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned over AI extinction fears, calling for pacing agreements between labs.

  4. Techmeme
    AI researcher Jacob Coxon says he quit Anthropic after four months, two months before his equity would have vested; he still has equity in prior employer OpenAI (Madison Mills/Axios)

    Madison Mills / Axios : AI researcher Jacob Coxon says he quit Anthropic after four months, two months before his equity would have vested; he still has equity in prior employer OpenAI — Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon quit his job due to concerns about the safety of AI two months before his equity would have vested, he told Axios.

  5. Techmeme
    Q&A with AI researcher Jacob Coxon, who quit Anthropic, on the need for industry-wide, international coordination to limit recursive self-improvement, and more (Maxwell Zeff/Wired)

    Maxwell Zeff / Wired : Q&A with AI researcher Jacob Coxon, who quit Anthropic, on the need for industry-wide, international coordination to limit recursive self-improvement, and more — Jacob Coxon talks to WIRED about the “mini Manhattan project” inside Anthropic, the problem with alignment …