IBNS-CMEDIA: Mrinank Sharma, the head of safeguards research at artificial intelligence firm Anthropic, has resigned, triggering widespread debate in the tech community over whether commercial pressures are eclipsing AI safety priorities.
Sharma announced his decision in a post on X on Monday, February 9.
His post, written in a reflective and poetic tone referencing writers Rainer Maria Rilke and William Stafford, was quickly dissected by AI researchers and commentators, many of whom suggested that compromises on safety may have prompted his exit.
In his resignation note, Sharma said it had become clear to him that it was time to move on, warning that the world faces danger not only from AI but from “a whole series of interconnected crises unfolding in this very moment”.
“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,” he wrote.
While Sharma did not cite specific incidents or decisions, he pointed to sustained pressure that made it difficult to uphold core values.
“I’ve repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions,” he said. “I’ve seen this within myself, within the organisation, where we constantly face pressures to set aside what matters most.”
Sharma added that one of his final projects focused on examining how AI assistants may “make us less human or distort our humanity”, a comment that fuelled online speculation that Anthropic’s recent push to accelerate product releases may have come at the cost of safety safeguards.
His resignation comes just days after Anthropic launched Claude Opus 4.6, an upgraded model aimed at improving office productivity and coding performance.
The company is also reported to be in talks to raise fresh funding that could value it at around $350 billion.
Sharma is not the only senior figure to have recently exited Anthropic. Harsh Mehta from the research and development team and AI scientist Behnam Neyshabur also announced last week that they had left the company to pursue new ventures, said reports.
