“It's not obviously wrong!”
Abaluck offers a conditional defense of capabilities research at OpenAI or Anthropic: working inside a dangerous program could save lives and create influence over its direction. He says researchers must exercise exceptional caution, reassess tradeoffs continually, and have an exit strategy.
- Speaker
- Jason Abaluck
- Capacity
- Personal public post by Jason Abaluck; not established as an institutional statement.
- Observed
- September 10, 2026
- Published here
- September 10, 2026
- Targets
- Anthropic, OpenAI
- Classification rationale
- Explicitly conditional defense of continued capabilities research, requiring caution, reassessment and an exit strategy.
Surrounding material
Full context
Before the quotation
In the immediate public discussion following Coxon and Hubinger's warnings, Abaluck explicitly discusses whether doing capabilities research at OpenAI or Anthropic is defensible and compares that work with nuclear scientists' roles in government weapons programs.
After the quotation
The post ends by asking whether researchers have an exit strategy if development gets out of hand or are rationalizing conduct that endangers others. His defense is expressly conditional and does not certify either company's current practices.
Evidence
Complete source record
Full primary public post and available surrounding thread. Speaker and position scope are explained in the linked event.