# He quit Anthropic, then the CEO blinked

> A safety researcher walked out over the AI race, and days later Anthropic's CEO called for a slowdown.
- Title: He quit Anthropic, then the CEO blinked · ABC News | Shortify
- Summary: A safety researcher walked out over the AI race, and days later Anthropic's CEO called for a slowdown. The people closest to frontier AI are the ones asking…
- Keywords: ai safety, anthropic, openai, tech policy, superintelligence, news, quit, CEO, blinked, ABC News
- Source: ABC News — https://abcnews.com/Politics/former-anthropic-openai-employee-sounds-alarm-ai-development/story?id=136401554
- Author: ABC News
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: ai safety, anthropic, openai, tech policy, superintelligence, news
## A researcher walked out
Jacob Coxon resigned from Anthropic last week over safety concerns. He had worked as a safety researcher at both Anthropic and OpenAI.
## His exit post went wide
On X, Coxon wrote that neither lab is acting responsibly, and the post spread far past what he expected.

> They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.
## The fear inside the labs
Coxon says the worry is not hypothetical for the people building these systems. He put their timeline at the end of the decade.

> The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.
## Then Amodei blinked
On Saturday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a letter titled "We Must Pace the Frontier," calling on AI companies to slow down.

> I believe we owe it to humanity to try.
## Coxon calls it a start
Speaking to George Stephanopoulos on "This Week," Coxon welcomed the letter as movement toward the coordinated slowdown he wanted.

> I think this is a substantial step towards what I was talking about.
## Risk talk is now routine
Coxon says big-risk conversations now come up a couple of times a week across the company, no matter where you sit in it.

> There's not enough time to be constantly thinking about the risks.
## Key takeaway

The people closest to frontier AI are the ones asking for the brakes, and that pressure is now coming from inside the top.