Discussion
christ i'm gonna hafta cover Jacob Coxon
and there's no story there
we have literally one tweet thread, not a word otherwise from Coxon
a bit of background info that says he's precisely the variety of AI doomsday crank he loudly tells you he is
and the media shitting itself, which is the only reason to cover this
EDIT: the first version of the WSJ story appears to have gone up about 20 minutes *before* the first tweet. whoop.
@davidgerard Coxon's tweet is not interesting. Evan Hubinger's reply to it is interesting.
@davidgerard I don't really get why people focus on the doomsday prediction rather than the fact that the companies building AI *themselves* claim to believe that AI might end the human race. They are telling us all that they're conducting the equivalent of the Manhattan Project in the private sector and need to be stopped or at least nationalized.
@davidgerard Maybe it's marketing, but I think it's extremely harmful to our society to allow people to lie in that manner without taking action. When someone says "Look I'm doing something that could end the species" they need to be locked up, because either they're dangerously insane or they're actually doing the thing.
@davidgerard I'm right there with you that AI isn't going to (directly) end humanity. It's people I'm worried about. But given that that's the case, the people running these companies are loudly proclaiming their own incompetence while investors keep knocking down their doors.
@davidgerard I'm glad to see this will be covered. Watching the general public wring their hands in comments on YouTube videos because they believe it all is driving me up a fucking wall.
@davidgerard brain damaged ideologue attempts (and fails) to commit seppuku in an ill fated, fundamentally silly attempt to persuade the powers that be of the divinity of an entity society writ large has long since seen through...where have i heard this story before.......
@davidgerard "Man on sinking ship who financially benefits from ticket sales shouts about how great and powerful the ship is while getting into lifeboat."
@davidgerard It's pretty wild to go from nobody to "AI doomlord" in, like 24 hours. https://gizmodo.com/ai-doomlord-jacob-coxons-media-tour-has-begun-2000809720
@davidgerard Oh sorry, "notable independent AI critic" 🙄
@haverholm this is a planned out media op and my moskovitz sense is tingling
@davidgerard Yeah, I noted that he made sure to give WSJ an exclusive before going public...
When your "Career" starts with the "Resignation". And ends there, too.
@footils fuckin. just proposed it for deletion.
@davidgerard maybe you can put him in context of other similar discourse? I think there were similar stories so you could maybe "so this is the kind of dumb this is, and this last one's just another instance, and this is why/how media give it much more publicity than it need be and this is the sort of nonsense this all serves". Mr. very punnable surname himself doesn't matter that much
"im not paperclipped! im not paperclipped!!", i continue to insist as i slowly shrink and transform into a cocob
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![Screenshot of the Wikipedia entry for Jacob Coxon. Text excerpt:
Jacob Coxon is a British technology researcher who previously worked at artificial intelligence companies OpenAI and Anthropic.[1][2] In September 2026, Coxon resigned from Anthropic, citing fears that artificial intelligence poses an existential threat to humanity.[3]
Career
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Resignation
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On September 8, 2026, Coxon resigned from his position as an AI researcher at Anthropic, criticizing both Anthropic and OpenAI for "gambling with our lives."[4](https://media.social.cologne/media_attachments/files/117/246/531/548/309/333/original/61958856c846ecb7.png)
@davidgerard Isn't this in a way the same kind of negative hype (forgot what the word is) Anthropic thenmselves use on their products ? Like oh no Mythos is too dangerous, can't release it, nope.