From Yahoo Finance · Daniel Howley · · 2m
AI doom talk knocked chip stocks down
A resignation post, a CEO essay, and a 10% extinction estimate turned into a 4% drop in semiconductor stocks.
In brief
A resignation post, a CEO essay, and a 10% extinction estimate turned into a 4% drop in semiconductor stocks. When the people building AI publicly ask everyone to slow down, the market prices in a slower buildout, and the safety trade gets bid up. Originally reported by Yahoo Finance.
Chips take the hit
The Nasdaq slipped about 0.8% in early Monday trading. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell more than 4%, a far sharper drop than the broad market.
It started with a resignation
On Tuesday, Jacob Coxon quit Anthropic and posted on X that neither Anthropic nor OpenAI is acting responsibly, accusing both of racing toward self-improving superintelligence.
“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”
A safety lead agrees
Anthropic's Alignment Science Lead, Evan Hubinger, replied that Coxon is right and put a greater-than-10% chance on the technology killing all humans.
“kill all humans”
Amodei calls for a pause
On Saturday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay urging AI companies to slow frontier development. His worry is recursive self-improvement outrunning human control.
“could outrun our ability to understand and control these systems, and so must be pursued very carefully, if at all”
Altman and Musk pile on
OpenAI's Sam Altman said he agrees with Amodei. Elon Musk replied "Dario is right," then linked to his own 2023 post calling AGI a higher risk than nuclear weapons.
“AGI is significantly higher risk than nuclear weapons, in my opinion.”
Microsoft writes its own rules
Reuters reported Monday that Microsoft is building a code of conduct for its AI models, a sign the pullback is spreading past the two frontier labs.
Why the market flinched
Traders started asking whether the AI buildout keeps running at its current pace. Slower frontier models means less demand for the silicon underneath them.
Cybersecurity gets a bid
Money rotated toward AI defense. In premarket trading Okta rose 5%, while CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks each gained 4.5% as firms brace to protect their infrastructure.
An analyst calls it strategy
D.A. Davidson's Gil Luria told Yahoo Finance the fear is overblown and self-serving. He reads the warnings as an attempt to invite regulation these labs can already absorb.
“There is no threat to humanity right now.”
Nobody slowed down alone
Luria's sharpest point: neither Amodei nor Altman said they were actually stopping. Both said they would slow only if everyone else did too.
“They both said, if everybody slows down, we will slow down.”
Trump rejects guardrails
The president posted on Truth Social that Washington already holds enough criminal and regulatory power over AI companies, singling out Amodei by name.
“The only control or "guardrails" that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT”
Here's the gist
When the people building AI publicly ask everyone to slow down, the market prices in a slower buildout, and the safety trade gets bid up.
