Tri-Star Pictures/Anthropic/OpenAI
AI researchers reportedly believe the tech can "kill us all by the end of the decade"
Jacob Coxon spent three years doing pretraining research at OpenAI and Anthropic. On Monday, he resigned publicly — and used the occasion to deliver one of the most pointed insider critiques of the AI industry’s safety culture in recent memory.
Coxon’s core concern is that the people building these AI systems privately believe they could be catastrophically dangerous — capable of hacking any system, acquiring real-world resources, and operating beyond human control — while continuing to build them anyway.
The researchers’ concerns are so strong, in fact, that they believe AI could “kill us all by the end of the decade,” yet persist nonetheless.
An Anthropic AI researcher publicly resigned and warned that labs are racing toward self-improving superintelligence without a plan, and that AI could kill us all within a decade
“Neither company is acting responsibly,” Coxon wrote in a tweet thread that has since accumulated over 64 million views. “They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.”
“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. 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.”
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…
— Jacob Coxon (@hilbertspaess) September 9, 2026
Coxon was particularly critical of OpenAI, saying it has not fully comprehended the stakes, and characterized Anthropic’s internal logic as a savior complex: the company believes no one else will act responsibly, so it must get there first and is ignoring the risks to do so.
“Accepting this race and entering the ‘endgame’ is a hubristic gamble that should not be launched from a private company’s Slack,” Coxon wrote.
Anthropic Alignment Science Lead Evan Hubinger responded publicly, confirming he personally puts his probability of AI killing all humans within a decade at above 10%, while acknowledging the company lacks a clear alignment plan for superintelligence. The response — from a sitting Anthropic employee, published publicly — is arguably as remarkable as the resignation itself.
Coxon called for pacing agreements between U.S. labs, pointing to what he called “warning shots” like the Hugging Face attack as evidence that coordination is viable. He also urged fellow researchers to resist accepting the race dynamic as inevitable. “Should you put your head down because ‘it’s happening anyway’ — or take this moment to call for different conditions?” he wrote.
Crazy to think that in 2026 we've had:
• Anthropic's head of safeguards quit, warning "the world is in peril" (Feb)
• OpenAI dissolved its own mission alignment team (Feb)
• Unrestricted AI usage for the Pentagon (causing several researchers to quit)
• Several AI models… https://t.co/toR9kSeXUo— Miles Deutscher (@milesdeutscher) September 9, 2026
You can find a full transcription of Coxon’s resignation announcement below:
“I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below.”
“Do not underestimate the power of this technology. 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.”
“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.”
“A common response is ‘if they truly believe this, why are they still building it?’ At OpenAI, many have not deeply internalized the civilizational stakes. At Anthropic, the stakes are well-understood, but they are locked in a race to get there first – they believe no one else will act responsibly, so they must do it themselves, despite the risk.”
“Accepting this race and entering the “endgame” is a hubristic gamble that should not be launched from a private company’s Slack. Attempting to speedrun alignment should require extraordinary confidence that there are no better trajectories available.”
“I am optimistic about the potential for coordination. Warning shots like the Hugging Face attack have made pacing agreements between U.S. labs more viable. I don’t feel like we’re on track to prevent a global race, which may require costly actions such as a temporary ban on improving model capabilities.”
“If you are a lab researcher, I urge you to consider what the next few years will actually feel like. Do you want to kick off a superintelligent RL run without a rigorous understanding of its mind? Should you put your head down because ‘it’s happening anyway’ – or take this moment to call for different conditions?”
Coincidentally, Coxon’s statement came on the same day that the first trailer for Artificial, Luca Guadagnino’s reportedly heavily critical biopic of Sam Altman, was released and played with the same tone of a horror movie.