AI-Doomsday Warnings Haven’t Derailed Anthropic IPO
Photo: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg/Getty Images
In the span of less than a week numerous individuals within the world of artificial intelligence have warned that, unless major new guardrails and reforms are put in place, the human race may be answering to our bot overlords or simply be wiped off the planet — and not, say, in the next century but within the next several years. “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” former OpenAI researcher Jacob Coxon wrote on Tuesday, announcing his resignation from Anthropic.
Days later, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote in an essay that the pace of AI development must be slowed down ASAP, noting his “worry that in 6–12 months … a [bot] swarm could be capable of taking over the entire internet … (potentially causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damage), and that the scale of damage would continue to increase from there if AI becomes more powerful.” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk agreed with Amodei as did OpenAI chief Sam Altman, who in his own post warned that without immediately implementing safeguards on the technology, humans would “lose control of the future of AI.”
The warnings on AI come just months after SpaceX — which, among other things, is an AI company — went public at a valuation of more than $1.75 trillion. Anthropic filed its confidential IPO in June and is expected to list on the NASDAQ as soon as next month, at which time it may seek a two-trillion-dollar valuation.
Some on Wall Street believe an IPO would be the way to keep these companies on the straight and narrow. “One could argue that sooner is better than later for a public offering as the accountability that comes with being a public company might be of a great interest to many,” Class V Group’s Lise Buyer told CNBC. And Gartner analyst Arun Chandrasekaran suggested to the outlet that enforcing stricter standards “could actually favor Anthropic and OpenAI if smaller competitors cannot afford the rigorous safety, evaluation and security investments required for frontier-level models.”
OpenAI is apparently going to take a beat on the IPO. Altman announced that OpenAI will not go public this year, saying it would be “ill-advised.” Investors may not have to wait long, though; during an all-hands meeting last month, the company’s finance chief told employees the organization “will be a public company in 2027.”
While recent AI warnings have scared the shit out of a lot of people, as the prospect of an apocalypse tends to do, there’s one person who’s not concerned at all and who would appreciate it if the individuals sounding the alarm bells would shut the hell up, lest they cost him money. Obviously that person is AI expert Donald Trump, who insisted on Monday that the panic about the technology is a vast conspiracy theory and that his big brain is going to take care of all of us.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump declared: “The only control or ‘guardrail’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades! The Trump Administration has stopped AI ‘people’ from doing bad, or potentially bad, ‘things,’ like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel’ – and we will continue to do so! We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies! There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China. WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS! We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so. Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!”
In a follow-up post, Trump added: “The only reason the AI/Data Center outburst is happening is because the United States is leading, by a lot, every other country. Don’t kill the Golden Goose!” That Trump would prioritize a “golden goose” over human lives is, of course, entirely unsurprising; other things he prioritizes over people include but are in no way limited to dirty coal plants and greenhouse gasses.
