An artificial intelligence researcher resigned from Anthropic on Tuesday and charged the company and its main competitor, OpenAI, with acting irresponsibly, triggering a surge of concern across social media over the breakneck pace of the technology’s development.

Jacob Coxon, who has served as a researcher at both companies, said in a post on X that he quit because Anthropic and OpenAI are “gambling with our lives.” He said those developing AI “earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

“Do not underestimate the power of this technology,” Coxon wrote. “These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources.”

Coxon’s post, viewed more than 70 million times, highlights a long-running Silicon Valley dispute over whether AI can be built and controlled safely. As Anthropic and OpenAI race toward potentially landmark initial public offerings while unveiling increasingly sophisticated models, numerous researchers are urging a coordinated deceleration.

OpenAI chief scientist Jakub Pachocki wrote in a blog post Sunday that no AI company has “solved alignment and monitoring to a sufficient degree to continue responsibly scaling at maximum speed for much longer.” Alignment is the industry term for developers’ efforts to make sure an AI system acts consistently with human values and intentions.

“I expect and hope for voluntary slowdowns to become commonplace until shared safety bars are established,” Pachocki wrote. “And I believe that international coordination on future AI development needs to become a top priority for governments around the world.”

Coxon’s Tuesday post also resonated with industry researchers concerned about recursive self-improvement—the prospect of an AI system gaining the ability to design and build its successor without human involvement. Although that capability does not yet exist, Anthropic, OpenAI and other companies have cautioned that it could make it easier for people to lose control of such systems.

“Neither company is acting responsibly,” Coxon wrote. “They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence.”

Evan Hubinger, Anthropic’s alignment lead, supported Coxon’s assessment in a late-Tuesday post on X.

“Jacob is correct here—we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade,” Hubinger wrote. “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.”

Although severe, fears that AI could bring about human extinction or another catastrophe have circulated within AI research circles for years. In 2023, leading researchers and executives—including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei—signed a statement declaring that “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

Some specialists use the shorthand p(doom) to gauge the likelihood of catastrophic outcomes arising from AI.

Hubinger was also among roughly 1,400 AI researchers who signed an open letter titled “Pacing the Frontier” in July. It called on the U.S. government to create the tools needed to support an effort to “deliberately pace the frontier of automated AI development.”

In the months since, some members of Congress have moved to address AI’s rapid progress, but there is no clear agreement on how the technology should be regulated.

In July, Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., and Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., introduced the FRONTIER Act, legislation designed to create a framework for overseeing the deployment of advanced AI models. Earlier this month, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, introduced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, which would temporarily halt advanced AI development until federal safety rules are in place. Both proposals have received mixed reactions.

“Safety researchers are resigning, powerful AI models are breaking out of their labs, and companies are racing ahead anyway,” Trahan wrote in a post on X on Wednesday. “It’s past time for Congress to get off the sidelines and do its job.”

Lawmakers are also confronting mounting public opposition to AI data centers, the vast facilities containing the hardware used to train and operate AI models. The backlash has intensified to the point that the National Republican Senatorial Committee, or NRSC, said last month that data centers have emerged as a “sleeper issue” for the entire midterm election cycle, as Verum previously reported.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this month that AI companies have done a “horrendous job of explaining themselves to the American people.”

“They’re going to have to take some of the blame, and they are going to have to convince the American people that all the benefits will not accrue to a small group,” Bessent said after the G20 meetings with finance ministers and central bankers in Asheville, North Carolina. “That’s what they hear from me.”

Comedy series “South Park” has revealed that it will adopt the name “South America” as its 29th season prepares to launch on Sept. 16.

Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said, “Inspired by the bravery and patriotism of Apple and Google, we are changing the name of South Park to SOUTH AMERICA. We especially want to thank our parent company Paramount — a Skydance Capitulation.”

Their announcement followed President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America amid a trade dispute with Canada. Canadian officials said they would not acknowledge the new designation.

Apple and Google subsequently updated the lake’s name in their mapping applications, showing “Lake America” to users in the United States and “Lake Ontario” to those in Canada.

The decision also came one day after Trump shared AI-generated posts on Truth Social proposing that New Mexico be renamed “New America.”

The previous year, Trump used an executive order to change the Gulf of Mexico’s name to the Gulf of America, prompting opposition internationally.

“South Park” received the Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program for “Sermon on the Mount,” an episode that debuted last year and spoofed Trump’s presidency.

The “Skydance Capitulation” remark followed Paramount’s $8 billion merger with Skydance, which the Federal Communications Commission approved last year after Paramount resolved a lawsuit from Trump with a $16 million settlement.

Trump had claimed that a 2024 CBS “60 Minutes” interview with then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris was misleadingly edited.

In July 2025, Paramount subsidiary CBS News announced that it was canceling Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” for financial reasons, days after Colbert accused Paramount of giving Trump a “big fat bribe.” The program’s final episode aired in May.

Paramount and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he has no regrets about launching the Iran war, adding, “If I had it to do again, I would do exactly what I did.”

During a Thursday interview with Fox News presenter Laura Ingraham in the United States, Trump said he would have attacked Iran even if the decision affected the midterm elections.

“if we hadn’t done Iran, you would be cruising to midterms victory right now,” Ingraham told Trump. Trump replied, “supposing we were cruising, and all of a sudden Iran has a nuclear weapon. They would use it.”

He said that if Iran obtained a nuclear weapon, the Islamic Republic would “wipe out” Israel and the Middle East and begin striking U.S. cities.

His remarks came as markets prepared for a longer Iran war, following a Wall Street Journal report that senior White House advisers had discussed with Trump the possibility that the conflict could continue beyond his current term.

Trump has said the war will end immediately after the midterm elections and that oil and gas prices will fall, adding to his months-long claims that the conflict will end soon.

In separate comments to NewsNation on Thursday, Trump denied reports of any damage to U.S. assets after Iran said it had hit multiple U.S. fighter aircraft at a base in Jordan.

“No damage. No nothing,” Trump said when asked whether the reports were true.

Applying economic pressure

Washington is continuing its efforts to isolate Iran from its economic network, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signaling sanctions against “a large bank” next week.

“We’re going to do it on Monday because we want to honor the memory of our fallen citizens on 9/11. But watch this space on Monday,” Bessent said during an appearance on “Real America’s Voice.”

Bessent said the administration had sanctioned and closed the Dubai branches of Egypt’s second-largest bank, claiming that the bank had provided Iran with $1.8 billion. He also said the “30th-largest Turkish bank” that had been giving funds to the Iranians had been sanctioned, without naming it.

The U.S. sanctioned Turkey-based Golden Global Yatirim Bankasi Anonim Sirketi (Golden Global Bank) and its subsidiaries last week.

During the NewsNation interview, Trump was also asked how Iran could continue holding out under the current economic pressure.

“I don’t know that they’re gonna be able to hold out,” Trump said. “But it’ll get settled after the elections. Or maybe sooner. But it’ll get settled right after the election.”

Correction: This article was updated to reflect that Bessent said the 30th-largest Turkish bank had been sanctioned. An earlier version misstated the bank’s ranking.