{"id":476845,"date":"2026-02-15T17:00:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T17:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/476845\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T17:00:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T17:00:51","slug":"anthropic-ai-safety-researcher-quits-says-the-world-is-in-peril-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/476845\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthropic AI safety researcher quits, says the \u2018world is in peril\u2019 – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

An artificial intelligence<\/a> researcher left his job at the U.S. firm Anthropic this week with a cryptic warning about the state of the world, marking the latest resignation in a wave of departures over safety risks and ethical dilemmas.<\/p>\n

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In a letter posted on X<\/a>, Mrinank Sharma wrote that he had achieved all he had hoped during his time at the AI<\/a> safety company and was proud of his efforts, but was leaving over fears that the \u201cworld is in peril,\u201d not just because of AI, but from a \u201cwhole series of interconnected crises,\u201d ranging from bioterrorism to concerns over the industry\u2019s \u201csycophancy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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He said he felt called to writing, to pursue a degree in poetry and to devote himself to \u201cthe practice of courageous speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout my time here, I\u2019ve repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a breakaway group of former OpenAI employees who pledged to design a more safety-centric approach to AI development than its competitors.<\/p>\n

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Sharma led the company\u2019s AI safeguards research team<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anthropic has released reports outlining the safety of its own products, including Claude, its hybrid-reasoning large language model, and markets itself as a company committed to building reliable and understandable AI systems.<\/p>\n

The company faced criticism last year after agreeing to pay US$1.5 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit from a group of authors who alleged the company used pirated versions of their work to train its AI models.<\/p>\n

Today is my last day at Anthropic. I resigned.<\/p>\n

Here is the letter I shared with my colleagues, explaining my decision. pic.twitter.com\/Qe4QyAFmxL<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 mrinank (@MrinankSharma) February 9, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

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Sharma\u2019s resignation comes the same week OpenAI researcher Zo\u00eb Hitzig announced her resignation in an essay in the New York Times<\/a>, citing concerns about the company\u2019s advertising strategy, including placing ads in ChatGPT.<\/p>\n

\u201cI once believed I could help the people building A.I. get ahead of the problems it would create. This week confirmed my slow realization that OpenAI seems to have stopped asking the questions I\u2019d joined to help answer,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

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\u201cPeople tell chatbots about their medical fears, their relationship problems, their beliefs about God and the afterlife. Advertising built on that archive creates a potential for manipulating users in ways we don\u2019t have the tools to understand, let alone prevent.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Anthropic and OpenAI recently became embroiled in a public spat after\u00a0Anthropic released a Super Bowl advertisement<\/a> criticizing OpenAI\u2019s decision to run ads on ChatGPT.<\/p>\n

In 2024, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he was not a fan of using ads and would deploy them as a \u201clast resort.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, he disputed the commercial\u2019s claim that embedding ads was deceptive with a lengthy post criticizing Anthropic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess it\u2019s on brand for Anthropic doublespeak to use a deceptive ad to critique theoretical deceptive ads that aren\u2019t real, but a Super Bowl ad is not where I would expect it,\u201d he wrote, adding that ads will continue to enable free access, which he said creates \u201cagency.\u201d<\/p>\n

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First, the good part of the Anthropic ads: they are funny, and I laughed.<\/p>\n

But I wonder why Anthropic would go for something so clearly dishonest. Our most important principle for ads says that we won\u2019t do exactly this; we would obviously never run ads in the way Anthropic\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2014 Sam Altman (@sama) February 4, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Employees at competing companies \u2014 Hitzig and Sharma \u2014 both expressed grave concern about the erosion of guiding principles established to preserve the integrity of AI and protect its users from manipulation.<\/p>\n

Hitzig wrote that a potential \u201cerosion of OpenAI\u2019s own principles to maximise engagement\u201d might already be happening at the firm.<\/p>\n

Sharma said he was concerned about AI\u2019s capacity to \u201cdistort humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

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