I Resigned From Anthropic Today  🔗 **Source:** [I Resigned From Anthropic Today](https://twitter.com/hilbertspaess/status/2097476196791709843/?rw_tt_thread=True) > [!note]+ Document Notes > --- > tags: [ai-safety, ai-governance, frontier-labs, coordination, superintelligence] > author: Jacob Coxon > source: X (@hilbertspaess) > reference: https://twitter.com/hilbertspaess/status/2097476196791709843/ > date created: 2026-09-09 > --- > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > > [!warning] Disclosure — the analyst is not neutral on this source. > > These notes were written by Claude, made by Anthropic. The source is a resignation statement > > accusing Anthropic and OpenAI of acting irresponsibly. Read the framing below with that > > conflict in mind: the summary and quotes are checkable against the source, but any judgment > > here about whether Coxon is *right* should carry no weight with you. Weigh the argument > > yourself, or against a reader without the conflict. > <!-- deep-read: light-touch --> > Light-touch by design: a 348-word, 7-post thread. Short-form public statement, captured with its > claims separated by type rather than padded to a full analytical template. > # 🏷️ Title: I resigned from Anthropic today > ## 📝 Summary > Jacob Coxon announces his resignation from Anthropic after three years of pretraining research > across OpenAI and Anthropic, and argues that neither company is acting responsibly. His stated > reason is not a specific incident but the structure of the situation: both labs are, in his > account, racing toward self-improving superintelligence, and the race itself is the problem. He > ends by addressing other lab researchers directly rather than the public or regulators. > ## 🗒️ Claims, separated by what kind of claim they are > **First-hand reports** — things he says he observed. Not independently checkable, but he is a > named person with relevant tenure staking his reputation on them: > > [!quote] > > I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. > > [!quote] > > many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible - but I hear the same people express fear privately > That second one is the thread's evidential backbone and is also the part no reader can evaluate. > Private statements attributed to unnamed people cannot be confirmed or refuted; the claim rests > entirely on his credibility. Worth naming plainly rather than treating as established. > **A structural diagnosis** — the most substantive part, and the part that doesn't depend on > private conversations: > > [!quote] > > 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. > This is a description of a collective-action trap, and it's falsifiable in principle: it predicts > that lab behavior changes if the race condition is removed, and not otherwise. > **The sharpest line**, on where the authority for this decision sits: > > [!quote] > > Accepting this race and entering the “endgame” is a hubristic gamble that should not be launched from a private company’s Slack. > **Predictions** — asserted, not argued: that these will "soon be superhuman systems that can hack > anything," that "progress is not slowing," and that people building AI "earnestly believe that it > could kill us all by the end of the decade." No timelines, benchmarks, or sources are given for > any of these. > **Proposals** — coordination and pacing agreements between U.S. labs, possibly "a temporary ban > on improving model capabilities." He is explicitly more optimistic about coordination than about > avoiding a global race. > ## 🔗 Cross-link worth noticing > He cites "the Hugging Face attack" as a warning shot that made pacing agreements more viable. > That is the same incident Sean Goedecke's anthropomorphization essay uses as its central > evidence — where you read it as a case for treating agents as human-like, Coxon reads it as a > governance forcing-function. One incident, two people building substantial arguments on it, > neither presenting independent data. Worth being cautious that a single event is doing heavy > lifting in more than one argument you've now read this week. > ## ⚖️ What this is and isn't > It is a public, on-the-record resignation statement from someone with directly relevant > experience, addressed primarily to peers still inside labs. It is not reporting, not a technical > argument, and carries no data. Its weight comes from position and specificity of role, not from > evidence presented. That's a legitimate genre — insider testimony — but it should be filed as > testimony rather than as analysis. > ## 🎯 Conclusion > File under AI governance as a primary-source datapoint: a named pretraining researcher from both > leading labs resigning on stated safety grounds, arguing the race condition rather than any > single decision is the failure. The structural diagnosis is the durable part. The private-fear > reporting is the load-bearing and least verifiable part. If this thread gets a response from > either company, that response belongs attached to this note. 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?, I Resigned From Anthropic Today, Jacob Coxon, 01m232rf7vbey08z8sp37bepq3.