September 9, 2026, (Inside AI) — A senior Anthropic employee publicly stated there is a greater than 10% chance artificial superintelligence could “kill all humans” within the next decade. The admission came as British lawmakers debated a bill to ban the creation of ASI.
Evan Hubinger, alignment science lead at Anthropic, posted the comment after Jacob Coxon, a 28-year-old researcher at the San Francisco company and previously at OpenAI, resigned. Coxon claimed neither company was acting responsibly and said they were “gambling with our lives.”
The warnings emerged during a 48-hour period on both sides of the Atlantic. In Westminster, MPs and peers convened by lobbying group Control AI heard dire predictions from former defence secretary Des Browne and Berkeley professor Stuart Russell. Russell warned of a “Chornobyl-sized catastrophe” and said humanity could lose control irreversibly.
Browne said that when he was defence secretary he thought nuclear war was the most likely threat facing humanity. Now he believed “a superintelligent AI poses a threat on the same, possibly, a greater scale.”
The session backed a bill tabled by Labour MP Alex Sobel aimed at banning the creation of artificial superintelligence. Beatrice Fihn, who won the 2017 Nobel peace prize for leading the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, told parliamentarians: “It is not the first time we're confronted with abilities that could end up killing us all.”
Predictions for when ASI might be reached vary from several years to more than a decade. Anthropic has not commented on the issue. OpenAI pointed to a statement from its chief scientist, Jakub Pachocki, who said last week: “International coordination on future AI development needs to become a top priority for governments around the world.”
Labour MP Darren Jones has written to the prime minister, Andy Burnham, and the heads of the UN and the OECD calling for a “multinational treaty for the regulated and safe development of superintelligence - not a ban on innovation or scientific endeavour but a safety-first approach to the rapid development of this technology.”
Citing Coxon's resignation, Jones added: “The debate ranges from the end of humanity to claims of 'marketing hype'. Either way, governments must now step in.”
Westminster Fears Clash With Technical Reality #
Not all experts share the catastrophic view. Dr Andrew Rogoyski of the Surrey Institute for People-Centred AI said: “In reality, these systems are nowhere near as versatile as humans, let alone humans acting collectively. I suspect we're heading towards 'the great disappointment' where advanced AI turns out to be too expensive and not useful enough to continue in its current form.”
David Barber, director of Sofair, a state-backed AI research lab combining academics from Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh and UCL, said he was worried about people “throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”
“AI is not going to go away,” said the professor. “It's incredibly useful whether or not you allow it in a fully unconstrained way to access the internet and various systems that's potentially problematic. We may need to learn how to better control these things. There are vulnerabilities in the software frameworks that need to be patched. But that's doable.”
Sandra Wachter, a professor at the Oxford Internet Institute, said she did not believe in “Terminator scenarios” but said AI posed real threats including its environmental impact, spreading of misinformation and replacing jobs. “These problems are real and urgent and need addressing now,” she said. “Terminator scenarios are a big distraction from real issues.”
Gary Marcus, an AI industry commentator and academic, said: “There is a difference between superintelligence that is aligned (if such a thing is possible) and superintelligence that is not. It is at least conceivable that the former might be net positive. So far we have neither, but a superabundance of hype combined with a striking lack of prudence on OpenAI's part has gotten us where we are, with intense mistrust all around.”
Funding Fuels The Anti-Extinction Push #
ControlAI is funded by Jaan Tallinn, the multi-billionaire founder of Skype who calls himself an “anti-extinctionist.” He has dedicated part of his fortune to campaigning for AI safety and warns some senior AI executives would be happy for humanity to be wiped out.
Despite being an early investor in Anthropic and Google DeepMind, two of the leading AI labs, Tallinn estimates that 10-15% of AI employees believe the technology will be a worthy successor to humanity.
He said in an interview earlier this summer: “A fairly known AI researcher said to me 'Jaan, don't worry about this. Humans are a disposable species'. From what I understand he was fine with becoming extinct.”
On every chair at the Westminster session was a copy of the book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: The Case Against Superintelligent AI.
Meanwhile, government officials voiced concern that Anthropic had declined to submit its latest model, Mythos 5.1, to the UK's AI Security Institute for pre-release testing. Only a few US organisations have had access to Mythos 5.1, the Cabinet Office confirmed. A spokesperson added: “The AI Security Institute continues to collaborate closely with industry partners, including Anthropic.”
In the US, Senator Bernie Sanders ratcheted up his AI safety campaign this week by again calling on Congress to regulate the technology. He pointed to polling suggesting that 81% of Americans believe their politicians should take action.
The independent senator for Vermont said: “We can't allow a handful of greedy people to play God and determine the future of humanity - our economy, environment, democracy, privacy and more - without public input.”