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It’s been more than a week since Jacob Coxon made his resignation heard round the world. While the former Anthropic employee continues making the media rounds, something truly extraordinary has happened following his public condemnation of the dangers of AI: Something.
After Coxon’s resignation, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei posted an essay entitled We Must Pace the Frontier, arguing that AI development has moved too fast, broken too many things, and that we all could benefit from some caution. Amodei loves posting essays, but this one is noteworthy for being less triumphalist than his usual machine dreams. (For the moment, let’s not litigate his and other AI makers’ and observers’ use of the loaded, deeply problematic language of “frontier”: Yes, they all think this tech is some kind of Manifest Destiny 2.0, but that’s for another essay by a much smarter writer than me.)
Thanks to Amodei’s mini mea culpa, the debate around AI safety is being splashed across newspapers and social channels the world over, Coxon’s warning sounding like a klaxon everywhere.
That’s every ex-employee’s fantasy, right? That your exit critique of your now-former company might actually be heard and (dare they dream it?) be heeded. Whether or not Anthropic and its fellow Machine Gods come down from Mt. Olympus to do anything about it remains to be seen, but at least an individual’s words broke through — and broke through big. Someone spoke up. An industry may change.
So, Jacob, buddy: Take the weekend off from doing media hits; crack a beer; and glide down the inflatable slide of glory. You’ve earned.
ONLY ON GAZETTEER SF
- IN THE JUNG ARCHIVES: Joel Rosenblatt plumbs the C.G. Jung Institute.
- THE OFFICE: Cydney Hayes on a lawsuit filed against The SF Standard and its CEO.
- HARD LABOR: Olivia Peluso on three former employees suing Daeho.
- BOYS ON FILM: Joshua Bote talks with one of the men behind a Daniel Lurie-themed porno.
- Y ASK WHY?: Eddie Kim on a Y Combinator-aligned PAC is spending big across the nation.
- MARC THEIR WORDS: A protest at Dreamforce calls out Salesforce CEO.
- AS THE WORLD BURNS: The AI resignation that may change everything.
- URBAN SCRAWL: What’s up with those crazy bike lane markings?
- MARKET WATCH: The Fillmore, Western Addition, and Japantown want a co-op.
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DISPATCHES FROM THE FOG
- REST IN PRO TOOLS: Tone Capone, hiphop producer best known for Luniz’ eerie ‘I Got 5 On It,’ dies at 59. (KQED)
- NO COMMENT: For a politician elected on transparency, Daniel Lurie sure is opaque. (Adam Lashinsky/SF Standard)
- RIP IN PEACE: The skate community lost Mickey Reyes. (San Francisco Chronicle)
- DIGITAL NATIVE GENIUS: And the internet lost Cat Frazier. (Oakland Review of Books)
- TIRED: One last time: Journalists need to stop ‘interviewing’ bots. (Wired)
