An Anthropic researcher who previously worked at OpenAI has resigned, warning that AI companies are moving towards self-improving Artificial ilIntelligence without acting responsibly.
Jacob Coxon announced his resignation from Anthropic on Tuesday, saying that he had spent the past three years working on pre-training research at both companies.
“Neither company is acting responsibly,” Coxon wrote on X. “They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.”
Coxon worked as a member of OpenAI’s technical staff from 2023 until July 2026, when he joined Anthropic as a researcher. His work at OpenAI included research related to GPT-4o.
In his resignation post, Coxon also accused both AI labs of failing to openly discuss their concerns about the potential risks of the technology.
“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt,” he wrote. “If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible — but I hear the same people express fear privately.”
Coxon said that the companies differ in how they approach the risks linked to the AI race.
“At OpenAI, many have not deeply internalized the civilizational stakes,” Coxon wrote. “At Anthropic, the stakes are well-understood, but they are locked in a race to get there first — they believe no one else will act responsibly, so they must do it themselves, despite the risk.”
