AI staff genuinely frightened for humanitys future, ex-Anthropic researcher tells BBC

However, some industry figures have suggested comments are overstated or may be designed to generate hype.

Chief executive of the AI platform Hugging Face, Clement Delangue, said on social media: “Sorry, but asking Jacob [Coxon] about AI extinction risk is like asking your AC guy about climate change. Not saying it’s necessarily uninteresting or wrong per se but let’s keep things in perspective.”

After Amodei’s essay was published, however, Delangue offered to help be a part of the potential solutions the Anthropic boss proposed.

Grindr chief executive George Arison expressed similar views when talking to the BBC, suggesting Anthropic and others statements were being made to drum up investor support.

“Because the only way to justify these valuations is to actually claim: ‘I’m going to take over every industry and I’m going to take over every job, and my AI is going to be doing all that work,'” he said.

Jensen Huang, boss on AI chip maker Nvdia, also discussed Coxon’s comments at a conference hosted by the investment bank Goldman Sachs last week, multiple people in the group told the BBC. They said he dismissed them as untrue.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump told reporters on Sunday that the US was “leading China in AI… And frankly, I want to keep it that way. Because whoever wins AI wins”.

Other critics say Anthropic has been trying to trigger a regulatory push to block competition, leaving it and OpenAI in a duopoly.

Anthropic is reportedly preparing for a potentially record-setting initial public offering on the stock market, allowing people to buy shares in its firm.

OpenAI, which was most recently valued at $852bn (£630bn), had been expected to do the same, but OpenAI’s Altman said on Friday this would not happen this year, citing AI safety concerns.