He helped develop AI. Now he says it could kill us all

Sep 10

2 min read

Screenshot of Jacob Coxon's X post announcing his resignation from Anthropic and warning about the risks of artificial intelligence.

ABNN graphic; screenshot: Jacob Coxon/X

(ABNN) - Is the future of artificial intelligence really a dark one?

Jacob Coxon resigned from his job at Anthropic this week. In a post on X announcing his resignation, he said he spent the past three years conducting pre-training research at OpenAI and Anthropic. OpenAI makes ChatGPT. Anthropic makes Claude.

What makes Coxon’s posts so unnerving is that although the AI revolution now touches nearly every aspect of modern life, he says the companies driving it are not acting responsibly and are putting lives at risk.

“Do not underestimate the power of this technology,” his post said.

“These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources. We have all witnessed the progress in each of these domains, and progress is not slowing,” his post said.

According to the Pew Research Center, 49% of U.S. adults use AI chatbots. Searching for information is the most common use, followed by work-related tasks among employed adults.

Pew also found that the percentage of Americans who use ChatGPT has more than doubled since 2023. ChatGPT is the most widely used chatbot, followed by Gemini and Copilot.

When asked about AI’s effect on society over the next 20 years, 40% of Americans said they believe it will have a negative effect. Nearly two-thirds, 63%, said AI is advancing too quickly.

Black Americans are already using this technology every day. Pew found that 24% of Black adults use AI chatbots daily. That compares with 47% of Asian adults, 26% of Hispanic adults and 20% of white adults. Pew notes that its estimate for Asian adults represents English speakers only.

“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. 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. No other human activity poses this level of danger,” Coxon’s post continued.

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