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AI researchers say industry is ‘gambling with our lives’

Sep 9, 2026, 6:33am EDT
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Anthropic CEO and co-founder Dario Amodei.
Yves Herman/Reuters

An Anthropic researcher quit, warning that the rush to “self-improving superintelligence [is] gambling with our lives.” Jacob Coxon, formerly of OpenAI, said Anthropic — believing itself the only responsible AI lab — was as a result racing to get there first, while OpenAI had not “internalized the civilizational stakes.”

“Things could be out of control” by the end of next year, he argued. Another Anthropic researcher echoed the warning: “We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans,” he said. “I personally think it is >10% within the next decade.” Even the firms’ leaders are concerned. Top executives at Anthropic, DeepMind, and OpenAI have signed a statement calling for government-backed tools to slow AI development should progress suddenly accelerate.

A chart showing US views towards AI.
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