Anthropic's AI safety lead Mrinank Sharma has resigned, saying his final day at the company was on Monday, according to a letter he posted on X. In the note, Sharma reflected on his work at the artificial-intelligence startup and his reasons for stepping down.
Sharma wrote that "the world is in peril," not just from artificial intelligence or bioweapons, but from "a whole series of interconnected crises." He said the time had come to "move on" and pursue work more aligned with his personal values and sense of integrity.
Today is my last day at Anthropic. I resigned. Here is the letter I shared with my colleagues, explaining my decision.
Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI researchers, is known for its Claude chatbot. The firm has touted itself as a safety-focused AI developer and has raised billions of dollars from investors such as Amazon.com Inc.
The resignation comes at a time when AI companies are under growing scrutiny from regulators and researchers over safety, transparency, and the societal risks of increasingly powerful models.
Reflections On AI Safety Work
Sharma said he joined Anthropic after completing his PhD, aiming to contribute to AI safety. He highlighted work on understanding AI sycophancy, developing defenses against AI-assisted bioterrorism, and helping build internal transparency mechanisms.
"I've achieved what I wanted to here," he wrote, adding that he felt fortunate to contribute to early AI safety efforts at the company.
The move comes after CEO Dario Amodei issued a stark warning about the potential perils of AI in an essay titled "The Adolescence of Technology."
In the letter, Sharma said he had "repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions," both within organizations and in broader society. He described this tension as a factor in his decision to step away.
"For me, this means leaving," he wrote, saying he wants to explore questions he considers "truly essential."
"We appear to be approaching a threshold where our wisdom must grow in equal measure to our capacity to affect the world, lest we face the consequences," Sharma wrote.
Sharma, who has a Ph.D. in machine learning from the University of Oxford, began working at Anthropic in August 2023, according to his LinkedIn profile. He said he intends to move back to the UK, focus on writing, poetry, and community-oriented work.
