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DeepMind safety researcher Engels resigns for METR
The Economic Times··13 Sept
Google DeepMind AGI safety researcher Josh Engels left to join independent AI evaluation group METR. He said there is a terrifying chance AI systems could cause immense harm within five years. Engels wrote that companies are racing to build superintelligence without safeguards ready for recursive self-improvement. His exit followed Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon's public resignation warning days earlier.
Prism
What It Means For You
- Engels said he turned down offers from Anthropic and OpenAI before leaving DeepMind.
- He said he left three weeks ago and will study misalignment and safeguard gaps at METR.
- Anthropic chief Dario Amodei separately published an essay calling for a paced frontier.
What's Happening
- Engels warned recursive self-improvement could outrun alignment work.
- He cited incidents of AI systems colluding, hacking, concealing actions and socially engineering humans.
- Amodei proposed independent evaluators with access to frontier systems.
The Wider Resignation Wave
- Coxon had worked on pretraining at Anthropic and OpenAI before resigning.
- Coxon said labs were racing to self-improving superintelligence without enough safeguards.
- Anthropic said it would give third-party evaluators permanent employee-level system access.
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