There is this 27-year-old guy named Jacob Coxon who spent two plus years working for OpenAI. Eary this year he moved over to Anthropic which is another AI developer. The Wall Street Journal reported the reason Coxon made the move was because Anthropic's reputation for safety was better. Not worker safety in the labs, mind you, but in the AI models they are building. Apparently that reputation was undeserved--at least in Jacob Coxon's mind. When he quit last week he wrote a post on social media, which in part read, "Neither company (OpenAI and Anthropic) is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives."
In another post, Coxon wrote, "The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade."
That would be the end of this decade. As in the next four years.
Some might think that seems a little, let's say, overwrought. So, what do other Anthropic employees say--the ones who are still there and haven't quit in a frantic alarmist huff? Evan Hubinger, Anthropic's lead in alignment science is far more optimistic. He told the media the chance of AI wiping out all of humanity in the next decade is only a little more than 10%. Hubinger says the main problem is that Anthropic can't figure out a way to keep a superintelligent system, "aligned," with what human beings want out of it. Another Anthropic developer, Samuel Marks, claims the longer a person works in research labs, the more frightened of AI he, or she becomes.
Yahoo News reports over 1,000 AI researchers have signed a statement saying they want, "global coordination," on a way to stop AI if it begins to spin out of control. Proving Samuel Marks right, the Wall Street Journal reports, OpenAI lead scientist, Jakub Pachocki wants a, "coordinated AI slowdown backed by government rules."
People have grown so alarmed--this anxiety was already bubbling, Coxon and the rest just popped the cork on the bottle--now even AI corporate CEOs are advocating for an industry wide development slowdown due to, "safety concerns."
There is one guy though who isn't buying into all this caution shit. That's right, our man in the White House, Donald Trump wants, full speed ahead on AI. The other day, after being told by OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman things needed to slow down, the President told everyone, in no uncertain terms, where he stands on the issue. On social media he wrote, "The only control or guardrails that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ) PRESIDENT and the U.S.A. has that in spades. We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies. There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one happy about it is China. WHOEVER WINS AI WINS! We are leading over China, and all others, and will continue to do so. Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!"
While no one, not even Claude, is familiar with the term, "Treasonists," it didn't take long for one of Trump's congressional lap dogs to pick up on his lead. Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson told CNN, "If Congress races in and does some sort of emergency session to try to regulate AI, we will lose this race to China. And that is a threat to every single American. So, we've got to have a chance. We got to have steady hands at the wheel."
It is unclear at this time if the Speaker understands that when the Titanic slammed into the iceberg, the general consensus was that the hands at the wheel were steady, but the fucking boat was going too fast.
So, here we are. Everyone involved in AI development--from the ones actually programming it to those in top management--say we need to at least slow things down until we are sure of what is happening. Or, we need to have the government regulate the bejeezus out of it, so it doesn't turn into a real-life version of Skynet. But, the President of the United States and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who don't know squat about AI, say we don't need anything to keep it under control except Donald Trump's brain.
Is it just me, or does anyone else see the flaw in this plan?
9-15-26