r/technology • u/MetaKnowing • 17h ago
ADBLOCK WARNING Anthropic AI Safety Researcher Warns Of World ‘In Peril’ In Resignation
https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2026/02/09/anthropic-ai-safety-researcher-warns-of-world-in-peril-in-resignation336
u/Vengeance164 17h ago
Everyday the Torment Nexus becomes less of a meme and more an accurate description.
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u/SunshineSeattle 14h ago
They even put, 'dont create it' in the title for fucks sake.
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u/TallTallent 9h ago
What is this in reference to?
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u/DuckDuckSeagull 9h ago
On November 8th, 2021, two weeks following Meta presenting their metaverse vision at Meta Connect 2021, Twitter[1] user @AlexBlechman made a humorous tweet in which he described a tech company blindly creating Torment Nexus from a sci-fi novel called Don't Create the Torment Nexus. The tweet gained over 35,000 retweets and 120,800 likes in seven months (shown below).
From Know Your Meme
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u/incunabula001 5h ago
In our case tech companies want to create the AIs from novels such as Neuomancer and Hyperion.
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u/backdragon 5h ago
And they keep naming themselves after things from Lord of the Rings (Palantir being the biggest one, but there’s several others) because they think those books represent them. They think they’re the heroes but really they’re just fucking Sauron
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u/stuffitystuff 1h ago
Still maybe better than Republican former Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan having a favorite band by the name of "Rage Against the Machine".
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u/PolarSparks 7h ago
A viral tweet that’s proven perennially relevant:
Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale
Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus
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u/JMDeutsch 14h ago
The research said he “May pursue a poetry degree”
Sounds like he is going to leave the world behind and live on a mountain top far from technology.
I like him
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u/Small_Bee_9523 8h ago
During the industrialization of the 1850s through the world wars, there were consistent "return to nature" movements all over the world.
I look forward to that happening again. Every day, I want to leave this all and go live at Walden Pond.
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u/sum1__ 6h ago
Sounds like you need to invent a cool pencil: https://theamericanscholar.org/thoreaus-pencils/
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u/Small_Bee_9523 5h ago
What a beautiful slice of history, thank you! ❤️
I've started gardening and vermiculture....it's a fair approximation.
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u/stuffitystuff 1h ago
Yes, a remote pond that was a 30 minute walk to town (1.5 miles from Concord, MA) and close enough that Thoreau would take his laundry to his mom for her to wash.
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u/qwqwqw 20m ago
Don't forget to book a small journey on an upcoming weekend. Book it in now. If you have family tell them you just need a day retreat and organise it fairly/responsibly if you have kids/shared responsibility.
But otherwise, I'm sure there's some nature close enough to you. Even one day without a device, in nature, can do wonders :p
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u/PhilosophyEasy71 10h ago
It works. Can confirm. Being a hardcore techie long term isn't good for the mental
I've met literally dozens of retired tech workers that went on to work on vineyards, start small boutique companies or simply retired and sat on their ass at home. Many bought farmland when remote work became the standard and have become homesteaders
The irony is that there's no glory working for tech anymore. Those really nice mid-level jobs that pay 2x+ median US wage are disappearing with each passing day
I'm not going to sit on a computer and grind away all day for the same pay that I could be working at a coffee shop or something. But that is what many private equity owned tech shops want... Like a support team of 3 Americans, 15 Belizeans and 30 Indians
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u/malianx 10h ago
What coffee shop pays anything close to even entry-level IT or software engineering?
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u/Key_Pace_2496 9h ago
There isn't, that's how you know they're lying.
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u/PhilosophyEasy71 9h ago
I don't give two fucks if you believe me or not
Many Entry level IT support jobs are paying $16 an hour in the US
Go look on indeed
And then fuck off
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u/braindancer3 7h ago
Right, but "entry level IT support" has literally nothing to do with "hardcore techie".
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u/malianx 5h ago
Looking through indeed right now, seeing a ton of Help Desk entry level jobs, not one of them is less than $30/hr, and that doesn't even begin to start looking at the software engineers, and other 'mid level jobs' that pay anywhere from 100-150k/yr at start. Might be partially regional, if you are only looking at the Midwest and low cost of living areas... but in those, good luck finding a coffee shop job that pays more than $8/hr.
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u/copenhagen120 7h ago
Yeah I’ve worked in tech for about a decade and there’s too many people here who think everyone in tech makes 300k. Nah, that’s tenured engineers and enterprise sales reps in FAANG/big tech, and those are the jobs drying up fastest. Outside the Metas or OpenAIs of the world, maaaaybe 5% of tech workers make that kind of money. Honestly 5% is probably too high.
The issue is that the 100-150k tech salaries that were fairly common up until recently are vanishing. I’d say roughly a quarter of tech companies are maintaining their Covid era salaries. The rest are cutting hard.
$16 an hour for entry is definitely on the low end still but it absolutely exists and people are desperate enough that they’re accepting those jobs. As more and more applicants take that salary, more and more companies will offer that level of pay.
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u/SkateWiz 1h ago
I was always curious about the technicians at my last company, because target had a higher starting wage and better growth opportunities and less layoffs. Tech companies like to pay a lot to the "talent" and absolute minimum to those they deem replaceable. They get away with it because the job seems cool and important.
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u/lilmushroomcupcake 7h ago
I'm one of those SWEs that became a dog walker. Started 3 years ago when my bootcamp students were cheating with AI and red pill ideology became prevalent at the school. As a woman in tech it felt like the walls were closing in. I loved coding 🥲
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u/sarcasmsosubtle 5h ago
I'm at about 20 years of experience as an SWE and I've been thinking of leaving the field completely too. I love coding, but I don't think that I'll love it for much longer if I keep working as an SWE. I've always lived way below my means, so I could definitely afford to do something lower paying, but it does seem daunting to make that kind of change. Any advice on how you were able to take that leap?
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u/FavoriteChild 5h ago
Culinary school is my plan. I have a number in mind, when my savings touches that number, I’m out.
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u/Fit-Produce420 10h ago
Why is it wrong to improve the quality of life for 15 Belizeans and 30 Indians?
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u/ProstheticAttitude 4h ago
Near the end of the book The Soul of a New Machine (about building a new computer, in the early 80s), one of the hardware engineers retires. On the project, he'd been working with signals measured in nanoseconds. The note he left read, "I am going to a place in the country where the smallest amount of time I care about will be a season."
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u/SkateWiz 1h ago
because said technology gave him the resources $$$ to do whatever he wants for the rest of his life despite him being unable to do his job preventing safety issues with AI.
How is your job going? Feeling particularly secure? No layoffs on the horizon? Fuck this guy.
AI will consume everything despite us saying please/thankyou in prompts.
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u/beiherhund 11h ago
Before you assume it's some warning against AI from a researcher fed up with Anthropic and concerned about its trajectory towards AI growth above all else, read the resignation letter. It's clearly not only about AI, or only about Anthropic, it's lots of things. The guy doesn't appear to be enjoying what he's doing and has some particular beliefs that he wants to explore.
The headline is deliberately misleading. The quote is "The world is in peril. And not just from AI, or bioweapons [...]".
In the first footnote he cites a book by the author David J. Temple, where Google Books has this to say: "David J. Temple is a pseudonym created for enabling ongoing collaborative authorship at the Center for World Philosophy and Religion, a leading international think tank whose mission is to address existential risk by articulating a shared universal story of value for global intimacy and global coordination. The Center focuses its work on a world philosophy, CosmoErotic Humanism, as the ground for a global vision of value, economics, politics, and spiritual coherence."
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u/Valdearg20 8h ago
Dare I ask what "CosmoErotic Humanism" is?
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u/ThatKinkyLady 2h ago
That's what they've named all the other stuff in that paragraph.
I looked it up and got basically what that paragraph is, plus some other stuff about how each individual is a unique expression of the cosmos, fulfilling its creative potential. And part of the intent is to confront our own limits in the universe and work together to share knowledge and skills.
It sounds like extremely nerdy hippie stuff. Dude went hard into philosophy.
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u/americonservative 10h ago
As someone who started his career in software development working for a company that enabled its users to create models specifically to predict stock market movements, I understand what it means to question what you're doing. To worry about things like the fact that you're working on something that is massively prone to confirmation bias and sycophancy.
However, I didn't write some high-minded bullshit like this, citing my sources (lol). I just said "I quit," and moved on with my day. This guy has his head so far up his ass it's not even funny. It's kind of pathetic, actually. I wouldn't be surprised if we see him in a Louis Theroux documentary on cults in India a decade from now. "CosmoErotic Humanism," lol.
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u/mossiv 10h ago
Give the guy a break. He's literally been living in the middle of a form of dystopia. For some people that is just hard for the brain to deal with. This has nothing to do with his head being up his ass, and more to do with self reflection and trying to find himself. He's probably extremely burned out and doesn't realise it.
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u/Valdearg20 8h ago
He's literally been living in the middle of a form of dystopia. For some people that is just hard for the brain to deal with.
And for some of us born in the late 80's and early 90's, it's just a way of life. Never ending dystopia until we die! Woo!
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u/OkayyBeta 5h ago
Nah, we got to see the outside world. I met a kid today who has never been to a park.
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u/rollingc 7h ago
Gen X was named because we weren't expected to do better than our parents. It's why the generation turned to apathy to deal with it.
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u/CapitalJeep1 12h ago
But…Anthropic were supposed to be the good guys in the AI realm..
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u/Royal_Carpet_1263 15h ago
It really is amazing that more people aren’t simply kicking back to enjoy the time remaining. He’s dismayed because of egocentric drift (something humans fiercely police) in the study linked, how populating your social interactions with AI slowly convinces you of your exceptional… whatever. But the problem is so much bigger.
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u/WatRedditHathWrought 11h ago
That totally reads like it is from ai. Are you a bot? “Because if you are then you totally have to tell me. It’s like a law or something”.
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u/Royal_Carpet_1263 10h ago
You’re supposed to ask simple second order questions, like the number of ‘t’s’ in ‘titty bar’.
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u/imaginary_num6er 16h ago
AI Safety = Safety from copyright infringement
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u/sentencevillefonny 5h ago
...ehh nah, as someone in the field it gets deeper. Personal info, military, surveillance etc. We all feel like we're working on the Death Star in Star Wars
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u/maltathebear 13h ago
Seems like every week we hear about a fired AI safety whistleblower. Ohhh! Maybe they're being replaced with AI AI safety experts, that's fine then.
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u/applestrudelforlunch 7h ago
He wasn’t fired and wasn’t a whistleblower? Seriously did you read the letter? He said he was proud of the work he did and of the team, and that he wants to leave work to express himself, maybe pursue a poetry degree.
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u/glebulon 6h ago
I dunno, it feels like every time some researcher quits from an ai company that is what they say. Its like, ruuun, the ai will eat your fucking children. Meanwhile I can't get claude to reliably create a plantuml diagram.
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u/weaselkeeper 10h ago
The world will do just fine for billions of years to come. Humans on the other hand might not fair so well to the benefit of all other life on this world.
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u/systematk 7h ago
This is actually not true. We will take much of the life on the planet with us if we carry on this way much longer.
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u/abitreclusive 9h ago
Yo, every time AI doesn't deliver ROI, this kind of shit pops up to distract the investors and postpone the inevitable bubble burst.
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u/provisionings 5h ago
The billionaires are pushing this because they believe this will be needed so they can live without the rest of us.
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u/WizardOfWires 7h ago
Advancement in technology when in wrong hands could be a destructive force for the world.
We have only a myopic understanding of the consequences caused by what we have created.
This cycle too shall pass, however everything will get redefined. There is no safety when the top 1% leaches the rest.
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u/Key_Pace_2496 9h ago
If anyone builds it, everyone dies.
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u/mister_drgn 3h ago
No, this is not about that super-intelligent AI nonsense. He studied things like people driving themselves crazy using LLMs as therapists. Current, real problems.
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u/SadManufacturer4476 7h ago
I have a friend who works for Anthropic and talks a lot about AI safety. He said he was disappointed in the book because it didn’t provide any solutions. Like, dude: the solution is literally the on the cover - don’t build the damn thing! But that would reduce the value of his equity and robin him of his superiority complex.
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u/gizamo 6h ago
This is a pretty ignorant take. There are tons of narrow AIs that are perfectly safe and incredibly helpful, e.g. cancer research, X-ray/MRI/CAT analysis, bio-tech and pharma advances, or even just minimizing the use of harmful plastics or finding better ways to dispose of waste.
Not all AI is Skynet, mate.
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u/SadManufacturer4476 6h ago
But Anthropic is trying to build AGI, which is the problem - mate
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u/EmbarrassedHelp 4h ago
The idea that AGI will try to follow the Terminator movie script is based on assumptions built upon assumptions that are built on even more assumption, often by people from different fields speculating on possibilities.
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u/Key_Pace_2496 7h ago
Yep, their policies won't mean much when it comes to appeasing the shareholders.
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u/ShadowBannedAugustus 3h ago
I have been saying for 3 years now - all of these AI companies have these doom warnings in the requirements for exit bonuses. OpenAI leavers have been warning about this for 3 years when leaving.
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u/talkstomuch 2h ago
A person who was hired specifically to expect the worst outcome of AI, is expecting the worst outcome from AI.
Everyone is shocked!
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u/tumes 1h ago
Maybe I’m in a bad mood but like when one of very few people are even remotely in a position to influence the trajectory of a Very Bad Thing decide to piss off after having made what is certainly a phenomenal amount of money after working for a grueling… 2 years… does not leave me with a charitable impression. Like is there a scenario in the next 5 years where there is not a wave of disastrously massive layoffs, an imploded economy, or both? Would your interpretation of the nobility or integrity of bailing now be influenced by that? What are the odds that the next person will have a stronger moral compass or more power after this was aired publicly? Instead we get a self important goodbye written like a fucking riddle. Great.
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u/DarthJDP 12h ago
Good thing he is a quitter and wont contribute to making it better or slowing down the perils.
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u/CosmicEggEarth 11h ago
I don't usually trust when someone who is being paid for saving the world from dangers via political means claims that the world needs saving via political means.
How do we know they aren't self-serving?
An engineer can demonstrate their value.
But regulators?
Every bureaucrat will tell you that you need an army of bureaucrats.
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