To the AI community, an Anthropic employee believing that the technology their company is developing might end the world is not exactly news — Anthropic was founded by former OpenAI employees who believed OpenAI, if left unchecked, would do just that. But an Anthropic employee publicly quitting in protest, as 27-year-old Jacob Coxon did last month, is. Afterward, a debate broke out: If you’re a lab employee who sees these risks, what should you do? Is it best to leave in protest? Or is it better to agitate from the inside, close to the seat of power? And how would the choice affect your friendships and community? And Coxon wasn’t alone. He was joining a small set of employees of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind who, over the years, chose to walk away. We, in collaboration, with Asterisk Magazine, brought together eight of them. They left for different reasons. A few wanted to call attention to the risks of accelerating AI progress. Others objected to their employers’ partnership with the Department of Defense or felt frustrated as what had once been an idealistic nonprofit turned into a corporate juggernaut. And some simply felt that their work — whether it was on safety or widespread job loss — would be more valuable on the outside. Read some of Coxon’s conversation with Daniel Kokotajlo, who left OpenAI in 2024, and more interviews: