"Jacob's Right": Ex-Google DeepMind Researcher Backs Anthropic Scientist's 'AI Could Kill Us' Warning

A researcher who has worked at both Anthropic and OpenAI has resigned from Anthropic, warning that "AI could kill all us" by the end of the decade. Jacob Coxon, a pretraining researcher who spent the past three years working at the two AI companies, announced his resignation on Wednesday. He said the industry's race to develop increasingly capable AI systems was becoming dangerously competitive and argued that commercial pressure could make it difficult for individual companies to slow down.

Coxon's bombshell warning has received support from Alexander Turner, a former Google DeepMind researcher who now works independently on AI research.

"Jacob is right: many researchers believe they are building something that could kill everyone on the planet. It was literally my day job to think about how to stop that," he wrote in response to Coxon's tweet. 

I left Google DeepMind in June. Jacob is right: many researchers believe they are building something that could kill everyone on the planet. It was literally my day job to think about how to stop that. https://t.co/yHm6HuIbZ1

— Alex Turner (@Turn_Trout) September 9, 2026

Notably, Turner has direct experience working on frontier AI research at Google DeepMind. According to his personal website, he left the company in June after several years of technical research focused on keeping advanced AI systems aligned with human objectives and preventing unintended behaviour.

In a blog post about his departure, Turner argued that the risks associated with increasingly capable AI systems may be greater than currently acknowledged. He also questioned whether existing safety research and safeguards would be sufficient as AI systems become more autonomous and capable.

Dangers of AI

Coxon's resignation has also drawn attention within Anthropic. Evan Hubinger, who leads an alignment science team at the company, said the concerns about AI safety were justified. He has previously estimated that there is more than a 10% chance of AI causing human extinction within the next decade. 

"I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to," he added. 

Jacob is correct here—we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade. I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to. https://t.co/QAIHiFP3QZ

— Evan Hubinger (@EvanHub) September 9, 2026

OpenAI chief scientist Jakub Pachocki has also warned that society is not adequately prepared for increasingly capable AI systems.

The warnings come as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind and other major AI companies compete to develop more powerful models and increasingly autonomous AI agents. Researchers and executives across the industry have increasingly raised concerns about whether safety research is advancing quickly enough to match the pace of AI capabilities.