Resolution criteria
This market will resolve based on the number of full-time employees of OpenAI or Anthropic who voluntarily resign, citing ethical reasons (including but not limited to risks of human extinction or disempowerment), or publicly announce that they will do so, during the month of September 2026, Pacific Time.
Jacob Coxon counts as one such person for the purposes of this market. See his tweet about resigning from Anthropic, which went viral with 712K+ likes as of September 10. His resignation was covered in the Wall Street Journal.
I'll wait for two extra days, in case any resignations happen during September but are only publicized later. If needed, I may add more options to this market. N+ means greater than or equal to N.
Comments and resources
I think now is a good time to resign from a frontier lab, especially if you work on capabilities, likely even if you work on safety. The more people resign soon after Jacob Coxon, the bigger a story this could become.
Here are a few resources/considerations for lab employees who think they might resign:
More about why you might want to resign now: Joseph Miller
Think about a media strategy before you quit: sjadler
Counterpoint: Dear God, Please Do Not Resign In Protest.
I liked this post, but seeing the Jacob Coxon situation updated me significantly away from this.
"Tinder for OpenAI & Anthropic researchers who want to quit in sync to avoid accelerating the other side"
List of AI lab employees who have resigned so far: Ethical AI Departures
Let me know if there are other resources I should add.
If you work at a lab and quitting is the right decision for you, I hope this market can play a small role in helping you make that step. If there's a growing consensus that somebody will quit, maybe that will give you the confidence that you can quit. Or maybe the silly incentive of insider-trading on your own resignation will push you over the line? In any case, good luck!
1,000People are also trading
@bobalobascrob and work in safety, citing safety concerns and a blatant disregard of safety procedures
@bobalobascrob I bet up a lot if you want to liquidate with a profit without any risk
@JasonMendoza2008 nah i'm confident that this would resolve YES.
Your access has been blocked – The Atlantic
@JasonMendoza2008 yeah basically i've liquidiated early one too many times and this time im gonna trust myself
i have never been wrong about anything large before
ethical concern most apparent and similar to "loss of control": "Even short of a full loss of control, we could see autonomous swarms of AI agents that act without human permission. Imagine “rogue” agents that work like teams of hackers (for example, holding hospital computer systems for ransom) but never need to sleep."
@CDBiddulph do these all resolve no if nothing comes out by market close? what if some new news comes out tomorrow
@bobalobascrob @CDBiddulph i think you should reopen for a week or two. People might be bounded by contracts during their notice period.
These 3 OpenAI probably don't count, both as too late and wrong type of termination? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/openai-parts-ways-with-three-researchers-who-mishandled-sensitive-information/
What if the resignation was announced in Sept. (but apparently took place at the end of August)? Joe Benton (@JoeJBenton) on X
@TimWho Thanks, I was just about to clarify this! I would say this doesn't count, because Joe did not resign in September, or "announce that [he] will do so" (rather, he announced that he did so).
If this had happened during September, I'd say it would have counted. The tone of Joe's tweet is a lot less condemnatory than Jacob's - it feels like he's saying "Anthropic and METR are both doing good work on AI safety, but working at METR is a better strategy for me personally." But he did quit because of "ethical concerns."
@CDBiddulph Does "n+" mean greater than or equal to n? Or strictly greater than n and non-inclusive of n?
@consnop Or maybe this would make them feel like they will be relatively alone in quitting, which will make them less likely to quit? Unclear which effect dominates.
@Bayesian they have thousands of employees. Some of them surely quit. And some of them surely out of ethical concerns. Or at least they will say that.