Monologue: Jacob Coxon and the AI Safety Grift
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Call zone media.
Hello and welcome to this week's Better Offline Monologue. I'm your host at Zitron.
That's all fine.
I've now had quite a lot of emails about the post by Evan Hubinger and Jacob Cox and of Anthropic saying that they, and I quote, earnestly believe AI could kill all humans with a higher than 10% chance that it happens within the next decade. I wanna lead by saying that these men, regardless of their intentions or cynicism, are beyond loathsome. They are disgusting to me. I find them vile. And I find it equally vile how many people are falling for their garbage. If they truly believe what they're saying, the idea that they're continuing to work on a product that could destroy humanity makes them want to be war criminals. Coxson, who recently quit Anthropic, did so in an extremely public way that has been covered by much of the mainstream media.
Claims that he quit to quote the Wall Street Journal because he doesn't want to participate in an industry-wide rush to build AI systems that can improve themselves. which, as I will refer to later, is referring to recursive self improvement, which nobody has proven actually is possible. In an interview with Wired, Coxson spoke at length without really explaining what it was he was scared about, outside of one moment where Max Zeph asked for specifics about his concerns, at which point Coxson incorrectly describes the hack as AI doing this all of its own volition, front to the hugging face attack. Only for him to respond when pressed about whether this is companies just moving recklessly fast, that he didn't want to focus too much on the hugging face attack.
because there's plenty of evidence that the companies don't know how to align the models properly. In other words, the moment that Coxson was asked to get specific about what the companies are doing wrong and where they're making mistakes, he punts to a non-answer.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–11:42
2
What is Jacob Coxon’s AI‑safety “grift” and why does Ed Zitron think it’s a hoax?
11:42–18:08
3
How did Coxon’s Wired interview portray the “hugging‑face attack” and why does Zitron call it nonsense?
18:08–21:59
4
What does “recursive self‑improvement” actually mean and why does Zitron say it’s a theoretical myth?
21:59–25:08