Topline
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle called for more restrictions on artificial intelligence in the wake of dire human extinction warnings from AI researchers on Tuesday that shook politicians, pundits and business leaders.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee markup including the “Healthy Start Reauthorization Act of 2026,” and other legislation in Dirksen building on Wednesday, June 17, 2026. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Key Facts
The panic was sparked by a post on Tuesday from Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who announced on X he was resigning because he said Anthropic and other AI companies were not acting responsibly and said that he and other researchers believe AI could “kill us all by the end of the decade.”
It then escalated when Evan Hubinger, the Alignment Science Lead at Anthropic, responded to Coxon’s post by saying, “we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade.”
Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., who co-chairs a congressional AI committee, said Coxon’s warning was “exhibit number 739 for why we need to pass the bipartisan AI Kill Switch Bill asap,” referring to legislation he co-sponsored that would install emergency shutdown controls for AI systems.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., called on Congress to convene a special session on AI, writing on X, “Partisan politics aside, there are massive implications of a race towards super intelligence.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., one of the leading voices of caution in Congress around AI, tweeted Wednesday that “Mr. Coxon is right,” noting he will “introduce legislation to ban superintelligence and pause AI development” and saying “the very people building this technology admit that it could threaten the future of humanity.”
Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, said, “this is an emergency. Congress must convene hearings and pass my and Bernie’s superintelligence ban.”
Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said in a post on X, “that there is even a possibility that these technologies would elude human control is alarming,” adding, “technology should enhance the human experience; it should never supplant it!”
Tangent
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman reposted Coxon’s warning and said it was “concerning” in a post on X. Ackman endorsed President Donald Trump in the 2024 election and has increasingly aligned with right-wing views on culture war issues lately.
What did Coxon say?
“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. 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 will act responsibly, so they must do it themselves, despite the risk.”
Other AI researchers weigh in
Hubinger defended Anthropic while acknowledging an alarming risk, tweeting, “I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to.” Samuel Marks, Anthropic scalable-oversight lead, also weighed in, writing, “AI developers believe their technology could cause human extinction (or similarly bad outcomes). This could happen in the next few years. In general, the more senior the employee, the more concerned they are.” Marks cited a “mixture of commercial incentives” as a reason companies are continuing rapid AI development, along with “a belief that they are in a race with other,” leading to concerns that “less responsible AI developers … will abuse the technology or develop it less safely.” He said “AIs frequently severely misbehave” and “many AI developer staff desperately want to slow down to figure out how to build AI more safely.”
further reading
Anthropic Researcher Warns There’s ‘>10% Chance’ AI Could ‘Kill All Humans’ By Next Decade (Forbes)
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