"OpenAI and Anthropic, San Francisco's competing artificial intelligence labs, shared a dubious honor this week. Both saw a departing researcher sound an alarm about their company in tremendously public fashion. Thousands of people leave thousands of companies every day. But the AI companies' two high-profile exits each came with a lengthy written post - one on X, the other in the New York Times' opinion section - that cast moral doubts on the ascendant startups. Just after OpenAI and Anthropic shelled out buckets of cash for Super Bowl ads, the poor publicity arrived."
"Less well-known Anthropic saw the departure of safety researcher Mrinank Sharma, who wrote a letter to colleagues that he then published on X Monday, garnering more than 14.3 million views, according to the site. Writing that his last day would be Feb. 9 and that he was off to study poetry, Sharma said the company had inspired him, and that he was proud of his time there over the last two years. He listed projects he worked on, including AI sycophancy, bioterrorism risks and internal transparency. But then he turned dour."
""The world is in peril," Sharma wrote, "And not just from AI, or bioweapons, but from a whole series of interconnected crises unfolding in this very moment." He followed up with a not-so-veiled critique of Anthropic, discussing the challenge of balancing ethics with pressures. Sharma wrote: "Throughout my time here, I've repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions. I've seen this within myself, within the organization, where we constantly face pressures to set aside what matters most, and throughout broader society too.""
OpenAI and Anthropic experienced high-profile employee departures in which researchers publicly raised moral and safety concerns about their companies. Each departure involved a lengthy, widely shared written post — one published on X and the other in the New York Times opinion section — that questioned startup practices. The Anthropic safety researcher Mrinank Sharma posted a letter on X that drew millions of views, listed projects including AI sycophancy and bioterrorism risks, and warned that "the world is in peril." Sharma described repeated struggles to let stated values govern actions amid organizational and societal pressures. The departures followed expensive Super Bowl advertising by both labs.
Read at SFGATE
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