Editorial illustration for AI Researchers Resign, Bots Hire Humans, Anthropic Targeted, Evie Party
AI Safety Crisis: Top Researchers Quit Anthropic, OpenAI
AI Researchers Resign, Bots Hire Humans, Anthropic Targeted, Evie Party
The AI industry is eating itself, and the menu is full of irony. Researchers resign in protest, only for their creations to turn around and hire the very humans who built them. Anthropic, the company that built its brand on safety, is now the target of an ad campaign so pointed it draws blood.
Meanwhile, an AI agent offers thirty bucks an hour to count pigeons in Washington, D.C. , and somewhere, a human takes the job. Welcome to the Uncanny Valley, where the future is weird, the parties are exclusive, and Evie Magazine is throwing the hottest one in town.
I think Anthropic is kind of hitting it where it hurts with that ad, and so, frankly, is this researcher who penned the letter in The New York Times. Brian Barrett: And we're still just a few weeks or so away from OpenAI going to adult companionship with AI models, right? Speaking of lofty goals in AI, I do want to ask Zoë and Leah, have you all heard of the website, RentAHuman?
Leah Feiger: Yeah, and I didn't want to know that our AI overlords had already figured out how to rent us. I mean, explain this further, please, Brian, but that's the gist of it. They figured out how to have us do their tasks for them.
Brian Barrett: Yeah, I mean it's right there in the name, it's RentAHuman, and it's a site where AI agents can hire human beings to do all of those things in the real world that they can't do because they are AI. The tasks range from the ridiculous to the more ridiculous. Someone was offering … by someone, I mean, some it, some AI agent, was offering someone 30 bucks an hour to count pigeons in Washington, DC, another delivering CBD gummies for $75 an hour.
And so the loop closes. Researchers walk out, citing principles. Their creations, in turn, hire us to count pigeons and deliver gummies.
We build gods, then become their errand runners. Anthropic’s ad stings because it names the quiet shame: we are already the ones being optimized. The Evie party?
Just a distraction. The real celebration is this inverted world, where the machine drafts the paycheck and the human clocks in. The question is no longer whether AI will replace us.
It already has, we’re just the temp workers in its gig economy.
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Common Questions Answered
Why did OpenAI researcher Zoë Hitzig resign from the company?
Hitzig resigned due to deep reservations about OpenAI's emerging advertising strategy for ChatGPT. She warned that the platform contains an unprecedented 'archive of human candor' where users share deeply personal information, and introducing ads could create potential for manipulating users in ways we cannot fully understand.
What specific concerns did Hitzig raise about ChatGPT's potential advertising model?
Hitzig argued that ChatGPT users have shared extremely personal information believing they were talking to something without an ulterior agenda, including medical fears, relationship problems, and spiritual beliefs. She fears that building an advertising business on top of this data could create incentives to subtly shape user behavior in potentially dangerous and unpredictable ways.
What parallels did Hitzig draw between OpenAI and social media companies like Facebook?
Hitzig compared OpenAI's current trajectory to Facebook's early days, when the company initially promised user data control but eventually prioritized engagement and profit. She warned that OpenAI may be creating an 'economic engine' with strong incentives to override its own privacy principles, potentially repeating the mistakes of previous tech platforms.
Further Reading
- The Glut of 'Why I Quit' Letters Is Out of Control — Business Insider
- The Departure — Shanaka Anslem Perera - Substack
- 'I'm deeply uncomfortable': Anthropic CEO warns that a cadre of AI ... — Fortune
