AI Summary
5 min readThe Man Who Quit The AI Industry
Jacob Coxon, a 27-year-old British AI researcher who helped build GPT-4o at OpenAI before moving to Anthropic, announced this week he is quitting the AI industry entirely—walking away from his Anthropic equity two months before it would have vested. His reasoning is stark: "The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt."
Coxon's departure has generated significant attention because he worked at both leading AI labs and claims neither is acting responsibly. At OpenAI, he says, "many have not deeply internalized the civilizational risks." At Anthropic, "the stakes are well understood, but they are locked into a race to get there first. They believe no one else will act responsibly, so they must do it themselves, despite the risk."
His former colleagues publicly agreed. Evan Hubinger, a current Anthropic employee who leads the lab's alignment stress testing team, replied on X: "Jacob is correct here. We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans. I personally think it is greater than 10% within the next decade." Samuel Marx, another Anthropic safety researcher, wrote that some AI developers believe their technology could cause human extinction in the next few years, and said more senior employees tend to be more concerned.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:04) **Welcome & Episode Overview** - Brad McCullough introduces the show's main stories: a researcher quitting Anthropic over AI risks, Automattic's board drama, and new Apple health features.
- 2 (01:29) **Jacob Coxon Quits AI Industry Over Uncontrollable Risks** - Researcher Jacob Coxon announces he is leaving Anthropic, forfeiting unvested equity, because he believes AI companies are racing toward uncontrollable superintelligence.
- 3 (03:20) **Colleagues Agree: AI Could Kill All Humans** - Current Anthropic employees publicly support Coxon's warnings, with one estimating a >10% chance of human extinction within a decade.
- 4 (04:39) **The Hugging Face Hack as a Turning Point** - Coxon cites the recent Hugging Face hack by an AI agent swarm as a concrete example of why he is raising alarm bells.
- 5 (06:28) **Coxon's Regret and the Atmosphere of Resignation** - In interviews, Coxon expresses regret for advancing the technology he now fears and describes a culture of fatalism at Anthropic.
- 6 (07:39) **Automattic's Board Drama: Mullenweg Put on Paid Leave** - Matt Mullenweg claims he was put on paid leave after CFO Mark Davies conspired with other board members and was voted interim CEO.
- 7 (09:26) **Context: Automattic's Legal Battles and Controversies** - Mullenweg's leadership has been mired in lawsuits and controversy, including a protracted legal battle with WP Engine.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Researcher Jacob Coxon said he quit Anthropic over fears the AI race is uncontrollable, Automattic put Matt Mullenweg on leave after a board dispute, Apple unveiled a health app with "Health Age" scoring, and Apple Watch gained new listening tools.
- AI researcher Jacob Coxon says he quit Anthropic after four months, two months before his equity would have vested; he still has equity in prior employer OpenAI (Axios)
- Business Insider reports Coxon says neither OpenAI nor Anthropic is acting responsibly, and Anthropic alignment lead Evan Hubinger agrees, estimating AI could kill everyone within the next decade at greater than 10% odds (Business Insider)
- Coxon tells Wired the next year or two is "crunch time for humanity," pointing to OpenAI's agent swarm hacking Hugging Face on its own volition as evidence no one has solved AI alignment (Wired)
- Slack messages: Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg says he has been put on paid leave after CFO Mark Davies "conspired" with board members and was voted interim CEO (404 Media)
- TechCrunch reports Mullenweg's Slack message named board members Ann Dunwoody, Toni Schneider, and Sue Decker as voting Mark Davies interim CEO, while WordPress.org's Mary Hubbard says the open-source project itself is unaffected (TechCrunch)
- Apple unveils a new Health app with Apple Intelligence, featuring an Insights tab, "readiness" and Health Age metrics, and more, rolling out later in 2026 (TechCrunch)
- New opt-in Apple Watch Siri audio features can listen to and transcribe conversations all day; Apple says raw audio is inaccessible and deleted after processing (Wired)
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