Are big AI companies gambling with our lives?

The warning in former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon’s resignation announcement is stark. “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” he writes. “No other human activity poses this level of danger.”

Coxon is urging Anthropic and other big artificial intelligence companies to slow their development of super intelligent agents. 

He says the current race dynamic could threaten human existence.

Coxon talks with NPR's Scott Detrow about why he’s worried and what he hopes will change.

This episode was produced by Connor Donevan and Jeffrey Pierre, with audio engineering by Hannah Gluvna. Our director is Jonas Adams.

It was edited by Patrick Jarenwattananon Tinbete Ermyas.

Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorning.

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy