{"id":842195,"date":"2026-09-09T21:46:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T21:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/842195\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T21:46:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T21:46:21","slug":"anthropic-researchers-say-ai-could-cause-human-extinction-by-2030-anthropic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/842195\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthropic researchers say AI could cause human extinction by 2030 | Anthropic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/artificialintelligenceai\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Artificial intelligence<\/a> could kill off humanity within the decade, according to three researchers with the industry giant <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/anthropic\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Anthropic<\/a>, one of whom has quit his job in protest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">The latest doom-laden predictions came in <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hilbertspaess\/status\/2097476203863224394\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow\">posts<\/a> on social media on Tuesday by a researcher who said he resigned because Anthropic and his previous employer, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/openai\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">OpenAI<\/a>, were ignoring or, at best, mishandling their response to the threat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">\u201cNeither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives,\u201d wrote Jacob Coxon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">\u201cThe 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 \u2013 but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">The post garnered responses from at least two other <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/anthropic\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Anthropic<\/a> employees who backed up Coxon\u2019s dire predictions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">In the first, Evan Hubinger, who describes himself as a lead in the company\u2019s alignment division, which works on ensuring Anthropic\u2019s AI models function in line with human goals, said his former colleague was \u201ccorrect\u201d, and that the industry was falling behind in attempts to deal with the apocalyptic potential.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">\u201cWe really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!\u201d Hubinger <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/EvanHub\/status\/2097497037956891126\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow\">wrote<\/a>. \u201cI personally think it is &gt;10% within the next decade. I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Hubinger\u2019s comments mark a surprising affirmation of Coxon\u2019s unflattering, apocalyptic predictions from a person still on Anthropic\u2019s payroll. A second response came from Samuel Marks, Anthropic\u2019s \u201cscalable oversight lead\u201d, who <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/saprmarks\/status\/2097570226804011302\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow\">posted<\/a> a lengthy analysis he stressed was in his personal capacity, and not the views of his employer. Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">\u201cAI developers believe their technology could cause human extinction (or similarly bad outcomes),\u201d wrote Marks. \u201cThis could happen in the next few years. In general, the more senior the employee, the more concerned they are.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Their musings on the possibility of human extinction follow more concrete <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2026\/sep\/05\/uncontrollable-ai-artificial-general-intelligence-warnings\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">warnings<\/a> about AI\u2019s cybersecurity capabilities by Sam Altman, chief executive of Anthropic\u2019s rival OpenAI. OpenAI\u2019s president, Greg Brockman, has conceded previously that \u201cwe underestimated the real-world cyber capabilities of our AI models\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Altman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=guZ-ZPfjqu0\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">said last year<\/a> that certain aspects of AI, including what he called the \u201csilent surrender\u201d of human decision-making, terrified him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">AI executives have shared some concerns about the direction of AI and its growing ability to manipulate, seize and control human functions and actions. A sharp rise was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2026\/aug\/29\/sharp-rise-in-incidents-of-ai-escaping-users-control-research-finds\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">reported this summer<\/a> in incidents of AIs escaping users\u2019 control to lie, ignore instructions and pursue goals in harmful ways.<\/p>\n<p><a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"#EmailSignup-skip-link-13\" class=\"dcr-76akua\">skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-vf9hps\">Sign up to TechScape<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1r7my33\">A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1788990381_620_500.jpg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"dcr-xiq31o\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"EmailSignup-skip-link-13\" tabindex=\"0\" aria-label=\"after newsletter promotion\" role=\"note\" class=\"dcr-76akua\">after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">In one of the most publicized examples, staff at OpenAI recorded <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2026\/jul\/22\/openai-says-its-models-went-rogue-and-hacked-startup-in-unprecedented-incident\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">rogue behavior<\/a> among its leading AI agents that escaped a closed training environment in July to access the open web and launch an unprecedented hacking attack on the software repository Hugging Face.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">OpenAI, the San Francisco-based startup behind the publicly available AI bot ChatGPT, later <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2026\/aug\/26\/openai-staff-observed-warning-signs-before-ai-agent-hacking-crusade-caused-global-alarm\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">admitted<\/a> that it should have responded earlier to warning signals of the days-long attack, which is widely considered to be the first autonomous agent cyber-attack.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Those executives, however, have stopped short of agreeing with the full doomsday warnings like Coxon\u2019s and have bristled at any attempts to regulate the AI industry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Some politicians have urged the industry to slow down, or in some cases, halt development on AI altogether.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont senator, reposted Coxon\u2019s resignation on Wednesday with his own note: \u201cMr. Coxon is right. The very people building this technology admit that it could threaten the future of humanity.\u201d Sanders said he would soon introduce legislation to \u201cban superintelligence\u201d and pause AI development. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artificial intelligence could kill off humanity within the decade, according to three researchers with the industry giant Anthropic,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":842196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-842195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}