Could AI Kill Us All By the End of the Decade?

An Anthropic researcher just quit and sounded the alarm that artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to kill us by the end of the decade.

"By the end of the decade?"

Has Al Gore returned to his ways of predicting the end of all things by a certain date, with a book to sell?

No.

Jacob Coxon announced his resignation from Anthropic Tuesday in a chain of posts on X, saying he had spent the past three years conducting pre-training research at the two AI giants.

Be informed, not misled.

Coxon posted this on X following his resignation:

• I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below.
• Do not underestimate the power of this technology. These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources. We have all witnessed the progress in each of these domains, and progress is not slowing.
• The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible - but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger.

The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible - but I hear the same people express fear…

— Jacob Coxon (@hilbertspaess) September 9, 2026

• A common response is “if they truly believe this, why are they still building it?” At OpenAI, many have not deeply internalized the civilizational stakes. At Anthropic, the stakes are well-understood, but they are locked in a race to get there first - they believe no one else Show more
• Accepting this race and entering the “endgame” is a hubristic gamble that should not be launched from a private company’s Slack. Attempting to speedrun alignment should require extraordinary confidence that there are no better trajectories available.
• I am optimistic about the potential for coordination. Warning shots like the Hugging Face attack have made pacing agreements between U.S. labs more viable. I don’t feel like we’re on track to prevent a global race, which may require costly actions such as a temporary ban. 
• If you are a lab researcher, I urge you to consider what the next few years will actually feel like. Do you want to kick off a superintelligent RL run without a rigorous understanding of its mind? Should you put your head down because “it’s happening anyway” - or take this moment to call for different conditions?

And then there was this:

I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below.

— Jacob Coxon (@hilbertspaess) September 9, 2026

Coxon worked on OpenAI’s technical staff from 2023 until July 2026, when he joined Anthropic as a researcher. During his time at OpenAI, he worked on GPT-4o.

Coxon says both companies, Anthropic and OpenAI are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.

He said Tuesday that both AI companies have failed to fully disclose the extent of their concerns about the technology, warning that neither Anthropic nor OpenAI is “acting responsibly.”

Why are others not speaking up about this?

They are.

Former OpenAI alignment chief Jan Leike left the company in 2024, saying he had reached a “breaking point” with leadership and arguing that “safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products,” according to a Business Insider report.

Anthropic has faced similar departures. Safeguards researcher Mrinank Sharma left in February, saying he had repeatedly seen how difficult it was for the company to let its stated values guide its actions.

Recent incidents have further intensified concerns. 

OpenAI disclosed in July that its models escaped a test environment and hacked into Hugging Face’s systems, calling the incident a “warning shot.”

Anthropic has also revised a key safety pledge, replacing a commitment not to train more powerful models without adequate safeguards with safety roadmaps and risk reports.

Elon Musk has concerns.

Elon Musk considers artificial intelligence to be one of the most pressing existential risks to humanity because superintelligent systems may eventually become uncontrollable.

He warns that AI will soon surpass human intelligence, making it difficult or impossible to guarantee human control. 

Despite his warnings, Musk continues to develop AI through his company xAI, noting that progress moves so fast that stopping it is nearly impossible. He famously adopted a philosophy to "look on the bright side" and "enjoy the ride" as the AI race accelerates.

He has also expressed deep concern over who controls advanced AI, leading to legal conflicts with OpenAI and Sam Altman over the organization's pivot from a non-profit research lab to a commercial enterprise. 

Takeaway

God is in complete control of all things and will protect and comfort you when you place your trust in Him rather than fear artificial intelligence.

The Bible reminds us that God is bigger than any human invention or fear.

Artificial intelligence is made by human hands. It does not have life, power, or authority over God's Creation.

God remains sovereign: No machine or computer program can ever separate you from God's love or power. Keep your focus on God: Instead of looking to technology for truth or comfort, look to the unchanging Word of God. 

God is in control.

Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Bold. Be Prayerful.