An Anthropic researcher by the name of Jacob Coxon recently announced that he will be resigning from the company, and that he feels companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are “gambling with our lives” with their AI technology. 

My initial reaction was pessimistic. It’s tough not to wrestle with feelings of impending doom when you read his message, and think about how there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do to stop anything catastrophic from happening, but after thinking about his statement for a while, I couldn’t help but feel frustrated and annoyed. You can’t be a part of the problem for years, and then all of a sudden decide you no longer want to be a part of it.

The discussion around the detrimental effects of AI on our society is not a new one. Moral and ethical concerns over it’s integration into our everyday lives have always existed, and it’s negative effects on the environment have been well documented and researched, but that hasn’t stopped these companies from continuing to build this harmful technology without any boundaries or concern for how it affects regular people around the world. 

An alignment lead from Anthropic, Evan Hubinger, responded to Coxon’s tweets by saying that he “earnestly believe[s] AI could kill all humans” and that the chances of it happening are “>10% within the next decade”. Aside from the fact that this is an atrocious statement from a PR perspective (Who in their right mind comes onto the internet to say that they think there’s a chance AI might kill us all while working for a prominent AI company? These tech people are so out of touch.), it doesn’t address the fact that AI is already being used to harm and kill people.

Several cops have been convicted of illegally tracking their ex-girlfriends and ex-wives using the Flock system, which is a terrifying thought when you consider the rate of domestic abuse among people in law enforcement. Data centers are destroying existing communities, causing irreversible effects on our environment, and consuming massive amounts of water. AI technology is being utilized by the IDF to exterminate innocent people in Gaza. But yeah, it’s so great because it can help you templatize your emails and organize your schedule a little bit quicker than before. 

If you’re not being killed with this technology, you’re still being hurt by it in some way, shape, or form right now, and you won’t be able to avoid it’s harmful effects. It makes you wonder what this “catastrophic event” is that these people are waiting for. Is people being surveilled by and murdered with AI technology not enough of a gigantic red flag for the people working on this technology? Obviously, AI isn’t the sole cause of every single issue in the world, but it definitely plays a big part. When will these people realize that we are already in a moral, ethical, and environmental emergency because of their technology?

I don’t think there will ever truly be a “reckoning” for these tech companies. I think they’ll continue to build this technology as much as they can without caring about the consequences, and once everything blows up in their faces (which I believe it will), they will all try and find a scapegoat to avoid culpability and wait for the noise to die down, so they can eventually come back and start a new form of whatever tech debauchery their twisted minds can come up with. That being said, a small part of me does still hope and believe that people will eventually come to their senses and eventually value humanity over profits. I just hope that realization happens sooner rather than later.