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Existential angst
What do you do if you feel like you're helping build something that could contribute to the end of humanity?
This is the existential question confronting the AI industry, a debate that only intensified after Jacob Coxon, an Anthropic researcher, quit last week with a stark warning. He said AI giants are "gambling with our lives" and that the people building the technology "earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade."
The swift reaction to Coxon's warning boiled over on Saturday when the leaders of the biggest AI companies publicly agreed on what should happen next.
In a Saturday essay, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says he's "become convinced" the breakneck pace of advancement must change and proposed a three-step solution to ensure the tech's safety.
Shortly afterward, Elon Musk and Sam Altman publicly aligned with Amodei's plan in a rare sign of support. "Dario is right," Musk tweeted. Altman agreed, too, saying the pace of development has been a "primary topic" of discussion at OpenAI in recent weeks.
Altman also said OpenAI might not move forward with an IPO this year. "Right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public," he said in a Fortune interview.
As fears over AI safety intensify, employees at Anthropic and OpenAI have also been speaking out.
My colleague Sarah Needleman reported on a big question facing many concerned AI employees: Should they quit or stay amid fears of an AI apocalypse?
Some AI workers believe they can do more good by staying on the inside. That means raising concerns, pushing for safeguards, and trying to influence decisions before they are made. Others worry that staying at these companies only helps legitimize a race that some believe is getting dangerously out of control.
BI's Alistair Bar explored some of these theories in this week's edition of AI Insider — you can subscribe here to his weekly newsletter.
Are employees at the big AI lab companies better off leaving or staying if they feel like their work is contributing to a possible AI apocalypse? Send me a note at [email protected] and let me know what you think.
Steve Russolillo is the Chief News Editor of Business Insider. He directs and drives the newsroom's coverage of business, technology, markets, finance, and innovation, overseeing reporters and editors across the U.S., London, and Singapore.Before joining BI, he spent 17 years at The Wall Street Journal in various reporting and editing roles. He helped build and then led the Journal's breaking news desk—a team of reporters, editors, and photo journalists tasked with dominating the most important stories of the day across coverage areas. Before that, he was a foreign correspondent in Hong Kong, covering markets, finance, and cryptocurrencies for the Journal from 2017 to 2020. Steve earned an MBA in finance from Baruch College and worked at Goldman Sachs in the firm's asset management division. He went to undergrad at the University of Delaware.
