"Perhaps the most unusual was by Mrinank Sharma, who was put in charge of Anthropic's Safeguards Research Team a year ago, and who announced his departure from what is often considered the more safety-minded of the leading AI startups. He posted a 778-word letter on X that was at times romantic and brooding - he quoted the poets Rainer Maria Rilke and Mary Oliver."
"Opining on AI safety, his own experiences working on AI sycophancy and "AI-assisted bioterrorism," and the "poly-crisis" consuming our society, the letter had three footnotes and some ominous, if vague, warnings. "We appear to be approaching a threshold where our wisdom must grow in equal measure to our capacity to affect the world, lest we face the consequences," Sharma wrote. "Throughout my time here, I've repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions.""
A recent wave of public resignation letters from prominent AI researchers has created a recognizable form of protest centered on safety concerns. Many letters, sometimes constrained by nondisclosure obligations, reveal anxiety about how top AI practitioners perceive the industry's trajectory. Several new departures surfaced this week, including a notable exit from a leader of Anthropic's Safeguards Research Team. The departing researcher posted a long, literary letter addressing AI sycophancy, potential AI-assisted bioterrorism, and a wider "poly-crisis," attaching footnotes and urgent warnings. The letter argued that wisdom must grow alongside technological capacity and questioned whether organizational values reliably govern actions.
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