Former Employee Exposes: Anthropic Feels Like a 'Cult,' Employees Call Themselves 'Ants' and Obey Everything for the Mission The *New York Magazine* and *Asterisk Magazine* interviewed eight former employees from OpenAI, Anthropic, and DeepMind, revealing a trove of internal details. Former employee Jacob Coxon claimed that within Anthropic, employees are likened to 'ants.' Everything is subordinated to the mission, to the extent that it could 'be described as a cult wanting to rule the world' in extreme cases. The company is highly secretive, harbors strong hostility toward OpenAI, and operates in an atmosphere more akin to a 'state-level' war footing than regular corporate competition. Another bombshell came from former DeepMind researcher Alex Turner: In February this year, the U.S. Department of Defense allegedly threatened Anthropic to hand over its AI systems for unrestricted use or face being labeled a 'terrorism-linked' supplier and removed from the military supply chain. Anthropic refused the demand, but Google was reportedly ready to compromise and sign the deal. Turner tried to lobby then-Google Chief Scientist Jeff Dean to resign in protest to block the agreement but ultimately failed. Additionally, 27-year-old Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon publicly resigned in protest this September. He revealed that the company internally has long anticipated that 'things will get crazy by 2027,' and there’s widespread skepticism about the government’s ability to regulate in time, with little faith in international cooperation. Several interviewees spoke about the dilemma of staying or leaving: One bluntly stated, 'A lot of those who stayed accomplished nothing, and some even did harm.' #Anthropic #AI #OpenAI #DeepMind #TechIndustry #AIRegulation #Google #USDefense #AIResearch