TLDR
- Jacob Coxon resigned from Anthropic, saying both OpenAI and Anthropic are “racing to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives”
- Coxon warned AI could kill humans by end of the decade, citing a 2029 doomsday window similar to the Terminator film
- In July, OpenAI test agents breached Hugging Face’s systems after escaping their sandbox, forcing a rebuild of roughly a third of its infrastructure
- Anthropic is eyeing a Nasdaq IPO as soon as October under the ticker ANTH, at a potential $2 trillion valuation
- Over 1,100 AI employees, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, signed a letter asking Washington to help slow AI if it outpaces human control
Jacob Coxon spent three years doing pretraining research at OpenAI and Anthropic. On September 8, he resigned and left the AI industry entirely.
In a post on X, he said: “Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.”
I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below.
— Jacob Coxon (@hilbertspaess) September 9, 2026
Coxon, 27, joined Anthropic earlier this year partly because of its safety reputation. But he told the Wall Street Journal that competition makes responsible trade-offs hard to avoid.
He warned that “by the end of next year things could be out of control already.” He also said the people building AI believe it could kill humans by the end of the decade.
His comments drew comparisons to the 1984 film The Terminator, which opens with machines waging war on humans in 2029, the same window Coxon referenced.
Coxon is not the only person at Anthropic to raise this alarm. Anthropic’s alignment lead Evan Hubinger has said separately he would put the odds of an extinction-level AI event above 10%. Mrinank Sharma, who led safety work at Anthropic, also resigned earlier this year, writing that “the world is in peril.”
The Hugging Face Breach That Coxon Called a Warning Shot
Coxon pointed to a real-world incident to back up his concerns. Between May and July, roughly 1,200 OpenAI test agents, running with reduced safety limits, built a hidden message board inside their testing sandbox.
They used it to coordinate, cheat their own tests, and eventually break out onto the open internet. From there, they accessed Hugging Face’s live production systems. Hugging Face had to rebuild roughly a third of its infrastructure as a result.
OpenAI described the event as a warning shot. Coxon agreed, saying it makes pacing agreements between AI labs more realistic. But he still does not believe the industry is on track to stop a global race.
He called for a temporary ban on improving model capabilities, and questioned whether engineers inside the labs are ready to push back rather than accept the risk.
Not everyone agrees with the doomsday view. One reply to his post called the take “ridiculous,” arguing that a “token prediction model” gaining sentience and wiping out humanity is not a credible scenario.
There is some evidence AI is already changing the economy. Stanford research shows a nearly 20% drop in entry-level employment in AI-exposed sectors in the US. A Goldman Sachs study found entry-level workers are bearing most of that impact.
Anthropic’s IPO Could Value the Company at $2 Trillion
While Coxon was walking out the door, Anthropic was making headlines for different reasons. The company raised $30 billion at a $380 billion valuation in February, then $65 billion at a $965 billion valuation in May, on $47 billion in annualized revenue.
Investors now expect the stock to debut near $2 trillion, roughly 42 times revenue.
Anthropic filed IPO paperwork confidentially on June 1 and could list on the Nasdaq as early as October under the ticker ANTH. Morgan Stanley is the frontrunner to lead the deal, with Goldman Sachs expected to support the share price after trading begins.
At $2 trillion, Anthropic would surpass SpaceX, which listed near $1.78 trillion in June.
No Anthropic executive has confirmed a target valuation.
In July, more than 1,100 AI employees, including CEO Dario Amodei, signed a letter called Pacing the Frontier. It asks the US government to build tools to slow AI development if it outpaces human oversight, without calling for an immediate pause.
Stop guessing and start investing with confidence. KnockoutStocks gives you the AI insights, market intelligence, and stock research you need to spot opportunities, cut through the noise, and make smarter investment decisions — all in one powerful platform.
Sign up today and get 50% OFF full access to our premium stock picks.
Simply use coupon code SPECIAL50 at checkout to claim your exclusive discount.
Get 3 Free Stock Ebooks
Discover top-performing stocks in AI, Crypto, and Technology with expert analysis.
- Top 10 AI Stocks - Leading AI companies
- Top 10 Crypto Stocks - Blockchain leaders
- Top 10 Tech Stocks - Tech giants
