Joe Benton is a former member of Anthropic’s safety team who announced plans to join the independent AI-evaluation organization METR.
Case
After leaving Anthropic, Jacob Coxon said Anthropic and OpenAI were irresponsibly racing toward self-improving superintelligence, while praising Anthropic’s current practices. Responses dispute catastrophic-risk forecasts, working inside AI labs, and whether governments should pause or regulate development.
Role at the time: Former Anthropic safety-team member, writing in a personal Substack post.
Responding to
Is Anthropic acting responsibly while advancing toward recursive self-improvement?
“Frontier AI companies are racing to build AI systems that can recursively self-improve.”
Benton explicitly challenges the characterization that frontier-AI companies are sufficiently pacing and resourcing safety work. His post is personal commentary from a former employee, not independent verification of internal practices.
Statement dates: September 11, 2026
