Mrinanka Sharma, who led Anthropic’s safeguards research team, has resigned from the company, saying that “the world is in danger,” not just from artificial intelligence (AI) or bioweapons, but from what he said is the “unfolding of a whole series of interconnected crises” today.
Mrinanka Sharma led the Safeguards research team at Anthropic in San Francisco. (https://www.mrinanksharma.net/)Anthropic, an American AI company headquartered in San Francisco, California, rose to fame with its AI model, Claude. Amid growing investor concern about how AI could transform the economy, Anthropic has released new tools designed to automate work tasks in a variety of industries. The move has further fueled fears that the innovations will hurt many businesses.
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In a post on X, Sharma shared a letter detailing his resignation. He said, “I decided to leave anthropology…I achieved what I wanted here. I came to San Francisco two years ago, finished my PhD, and wanted to contribute to AI security. I feel lucky to be able to contribute what I have here: understanding AI sycophancy and its causes; actually developing defenses for AI to reduce the risk of AI. In production and writing one of the first AI security cases.”
Sharma expressed pride in his recent efforts, particularly his final project on “understanding how AI assistants can make us less human or distort our humanity.”
However, he said, it was time for him to move on. “I constantly find myself taking stock of our situation. The world is in danger. And not just from AI or bioweapons, but from a whole series of interconnected crises emerging right now. We seem to be approaching a tipping point where we must increase our knowledge as much as our ability to influence the world, lest we face the consequences.”
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He notes that throughout his time at Anthropic, he has repeatedly realized “how difficult it is to let our values guide our actions”.
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Sharma agrees that there is constant pressure, both within the company and within itself, to keep the most important things separate, and that this can be seen throughout society at large.
What’s next for Mrinank Sharma?Mrinanka Sharma expresses his willingness to contribute in a way that falls under his integrity, allowing him to “endure more of my attributes”.
“I want to explore the questions that seem to me really necessary, the questions that David White would say “have no right to go away”, the questions that Rilke urges us to “live”. For me, that means going away,” Sharma said in his letter.
Sharma did not elaborate on what he would do next. Instead, he quotes a famous Zen quote, “Not knowing is most intimate”.
He said he wanted to create a space where he could set aside the structures that had held him back over the years and explore what might emerge in their absence.
“I feel called to writing that addresses and fully engages with the place we find ourselves, and that holds up scientific truth as well as poetic truth as equally valid ways of knowing, both of which I believe have something to contribute as new technologies evolve,” Sharma writes.
Mrinanka Sharma said she hopes to pursue a degree in poetry and devote herself to practicing bold speech.
“I’m also excited to deepen my practice of facilitation, coaching, community building and group work. We’ll do what we release,” he added. Finally, Mrinanka Sharma signed the letter saying that William Stafford’s “The Way It Is” is one of his favorite poems.
In a separate post, Sharma said he would return to the UK and “let himself disappear for a while”.
