Insider Warnings Over AI Fall Flat with Some in Silicon Valley
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Dramatic Insider Warnings Over AI Fall Flat with Some in Silicon Valley
Image source: Reuters
By Lily Jamali, North America Technology Correspondent in San Francisco
Published 52 minutes ago
Each September, a who’s who of executives from across Silicon Valley descends on San Francisco’s Palace Hotel to charm investors at a conference hosted by the investment bank Goldman Sachs.
This past week, between talk of growth and potential returns, tech titans found themselves addressing the abrupt resignation of Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon.
Coxon, a 27-year-old who worked at OpenAI before joining its chief rival Anthropic, said on Tuesday that people building artificial intelligence (AI) believed the technology could destroy humanity. He stated: "These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything."
He is by no means the first AI insider to publicly sound the alarm. There have been a string of high-profile resignations from both Anthropic and OpenAI in recent years over apparent safety concerns, and some current Anthropic employees even echoed Coxon’s post.
"We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade," a team lead at Anthropic, Evan Hubinger, posted on X.
While Coxon said explicitly in his posts that his warnings were "not marketing", some executives and investors in Silicon Valley have reacted with scepticism to a recent flurry of insiders sounding the alarm.
Anthropic and OpenAI are reportedly preparing for potentially record-setting initial public offerings, and some in the tech sector have suggested the latest stark comments about the dangers of AI may be designed to generate hype by signalling the power of these products.
Anthropic’s boss, Dario Amodei, has come under fire for saying AI technology could wipe out half of entry-level white-collar jobs and will "test who we are as a species."
One conference speaker, Grindr CEO George Arison, told the BBC he believed this week’s comments from Coxon and others were indicative of an "anti-civilisational worldview at Anthropic." He called them "dangerous" and said they had prompted him to instruct some engineers at the LGBTQ+ dating app to stop using Anthropic‘s technology.
"It is irresponsible for us as stewards of our shareholders’ money to be relying on a business that does what this company does, in terms of its public statements," he said. "Maybe they actually believe it. Or you could argue they’re saying it because it’s a great way to gin up more investor support, because the only way to justify these valuations is to actually claim: ‘I’m going to take over every industry and I’m going to take over every job, and my AI is going to be doing all that work.’"
Anthropic was valued at $965bn (£713bn) in its most recent fundraising round earlier this year.
The BBC has asked Anthropic for a response to the statements.
In an essay posted early on Saturday, Amodei called for a slowing of AI model development and global regulation – and said the risks associated with AI were "serious."
Anthropic boss Dario Amodei calls for AI development to slow down
Published 38 minutes ago
Anthropic researcher believes more than 10% chance AI ‘could kill all humans’
Published 3 days ago
Why some experts increasingly fear AI will take over
Published 2 days ago
Image source: Getty Images
Image caption: Grindr CEO George Arison told the BBC he believed some of the stark public warnings about AI were "dangerous"
