AI Firms Cry ‘Apocalypse’ Right Before Their $1 Trillion Stock Debuts

Anthropic, the company behind the chatbot Claude, recently announced that its AI can now write 80% of its own code and design its own successors—a process it calls "recursive self-improvement" [170924]. The warning came just as SpaceX launched its big stock market debut, and as Wall Street values AI firms at nearly one trillion dollars [170924]. Both Anthropic and OpenAI are preparing to sell shares to the public [170924].

This creates a strange situation: the companies that could make the most money from AI are also the ones shouting the loudest about its dangers [170924]. Some believe the warnings are real, as many AI researchers have long worried about keeping AI aligned with human interests [170924]. But others see a pattern. Anthropic recently took part in a Vatican meeting on AI, which critics have called "popewashing"—a way to look responsible by borrowing the Church’s moral authority [170924]. David Sacks, a former AI official, summed up the critics’ view: the message from these firms is, "You want the government to save us... from you" [170924].

The debate is now central to finance and politics [170924]. Public opinion favors limits on AI, and even the Trump administration is starting to write rules [170924]. As AI companies prepare for their IPOs, the call for caution is getting louder [169730]. The rapid progress of their AI systems is driving this growth, but some experts are now asking whether the world should slow down or temporarily pause the development of frontier AI [169730].

The business model seems to be: sell fear and hope in the same package [170924].