Some of Anthropic's longest-serving staff members are making concrete contingency plans in case artificial intelligence spirals out of control. Over the past few weeks, some of its earliest employees told an industry colleague they are considering buying land in remote parts of the US. They could relocate to these areas if artificial intelligence goes awry, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
The concept of fleeing from advanced technology is not new within this specific crowd. Former employees recall that even during company dinners in Anthropic's early days, people discussed a Manhattan Project style scenario. Staff members might be asked to move to the desert and keep building artificial intelligence inside an electromagnetically shielded government facility.
Early hires share deep roots in subculture
The report traces how closely the earliest hires at both Anthropic and OpenAI are tied to the Effective Altruism subculture. Some individuals originate from a Bay Area network of doomers who have spent years gaming out end of the world scenarios. Eliezer Yudkowsky sounded the alarm about uncontrolled artificial intelligence back in the mid-2000s, becoming the intellectual godfather of this subculture.
Before artificial intelligence rose to the top of the threat list, the group obsessed over catastrophic risks ranging from asteroid impacts to supervolcanoes.
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Neither Anthropic nor the individual employees have announced official timelines or finalized purchases regarding the remote land plans. The discussions remain personal contingency measures among a subset of early workers.
The individuals involved continue their work while weighing these long-term survival scenarios against ongoing technological advancements.
