Tech Explained: Anthropic AI safety engineer Mrinank Sharma resigns, hints he would rather write poetry instead of this work in Simple Terms

Anthropic is right now one of the hottest companies in the world. It seems like a company that is destined to shape humanity’s future with Claude AI. Its CEO Dario Amodei knows this and hence has attempted to take a leading role in shaping AI development not only at his company but in general. And yet, Mrinank Sharma, a young AI safety researcher, has left Anthropic in a hurry, complete with a cryptic note on social media.

Mrinank, who finished his DPhil in Machine Learning from University of Oxford a couple of years ago and has a Master of Engineering in Machine Learning from University of Cambridge, has decided to call it quits on his Anthropic career. Reasons? We aren’t sure, although Mrinank’s cryptic post on X hints at something, a post in which he references poets like Rilke and William Stafford.

Mrinank’s resignation note

Still, reading between the lines offers something. This something seems to be in two specific areas. One, Mrinank believes that the world, complete with disruptions brought by AI, is in an upheaval. Someone needs to make sense of this world and Mrinank believes that he would rather do that by writing about it, including using poetry, instead of spending his time trying to make AI less sycophant.

“The world is in peril. And not just from AI, or bioweapons, but from a whole series of interconnected crises unfolding in this very moment,” writes Mrinank. “We appear to be approaching a threshold where our wisdom must grow in equal measure to our capacity to affect the world, lest we face the consequences.”

And two, Mrinank believes there is a difference in what Anthropic seems to say in public about AI safety and what the company practices at the workplace. “Throughout my time here, I’ve repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions,” he writes in his note addressed to colleagues. “I’ve seen this within myself, within the organisation, where we constantly face pressures to set aside what matters most, and throughout broader society too.”

Instead of teaching AI to be more transparent with humans and less sycophant, Mrinank says he feels “called to writing that addresses and engages fully with the place we find ourselves.” With this writing he wants to place “poetic truth alongside scientific truth as equally valid ways of knowing, both of which I believe have something essential to contribute when developing new technology.”

Poetry degree is next

To put it more plainly, as Mrinank does it in his note, he hopes “to explore a poetry degree and devote myself to the practice of courageous speech”.

Mrinank closes his letter with William Stafford’s poem,”The Way It Is.” While Sharma does not explain what the poem means for him, it may be a symbol of an unchanged moral compass, with lines such as “There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change,” and, “While you hold it you can’t get lost. Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old. Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding. You don’t ever let go of the thread.”

Essentially, there seems to be a mix of conscientious calling and workplace dynamics behind Mrinank’s resignation. Interestingly, he is not the first AI researcher who has faced workplace dilemmas due to a perceived disconnect between what a tech company says and what it does. Earlier in 2020 in Google, Dr Timnit Gebru left the company when a dispute arose over her work related to bias in AI systems. While Google claimed that she had resigned, Gebru insisted that she was fired due to her work.

Since leaving Google, Gebru has become an outspoken critic of what she deems hypocrisy within tech companies. In 2021 she founded Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, and in recent years she has been recognised as one of the leading researchers and commentators on topics such as ethics and AI.

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