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Throughout history, there have been many spectacular moments when an individual quitting their job has tilted the pinball machine of the world. Edward VIII’s 1936 abdication of the British throne comes to mind. So does Richard Nixon’s 1974 resignation ahead of his impeachment. Or Pope Benedict XVI bowing out of the sweetest gig ever due to age in 2013.
Then there are those resignations that rise to the level of art, like flight attendant Steven Slater’s fantastic exit — emergency slide deployed, beer in hand — from JetBlue flight 1052 after a confrontation with a passenger in 2010. Just before he slid into history, Slater took to the plane’s public address system and reportedly uttered final words so perfect, they might’ve been written by Shakespeare: “To the motherfucker who just told me to fuck off, fuck you. I’ve been in this business 20 years. And that’s it, I’m done.”
History will decide if Jacob Coxon’s resignation from Anthropic is as epic as Slater’s, but Coxon’s exit words are already resonating. “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” Coxon tweeted Wednesday. “This is not a marketing stunt. 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.”
What Coxon lacks in expletives, he more than makes up for in clarity, especially in his direct appeal to his former colleagues in the AI industry: “If you are a lab researcher, I urge you to consider what the next few years will actually feel like.”
Will they listen? With Anthropic’s possibly $2 trillion IPO just around the corner, I sort of doubt it.
Coxon may turn out to be like one of those people holding a sign reading “The End is Near” in a New Yorker cartoon. Then again, he may turn out to be one of those horror movie characters like Quint in Jaws (1955) or “Crazy Ralph” in Friday the 13th (1980) whose warnings go unheeded until it’s too late.
None of us possess the intelligence — much less the superintelligence — to know right now. Quitting is a bit like asymmetrical warfare, especially when the company you disapprove of is as big as Anthropic, but in Coxon’s case, he may get the final word.
Are we willing to listen?
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