'The growing debate over the 'AIpocalypse' is also, and above all, about big money'

How much is a company worth if it could potentially wipe out humanity? That is the very real question Wall Street has been asking itself lately, and this alone shows that the growing debate over the "AIpocalypse" – the end of the world brought about by uncontrollable artificial intelligence (AI) – is also, and above all, about big money.

It all began on September 9, with the dramatic resignation of Jacob Coxon, an engineer who had spent three months at Anthropic after a stint at OpenAI, both companies at the forefront of AI development. The 27-year-old Briton posted a message on social media, accusing both companies of hubris. He revealed that the developers behind AI models believe the technology could destroy humanity within the next 10 years.

Far from contradicting him, Anthropic executives, whose company develops Claude, went even further. Evan Hubinger, a safety researcher, estimated the probability of such an apocalypse at "more than 10%." Dario Amodei, the company’s CEO, published an essay on Saturday, September 12, calling for development to be slowed and for stronger regulation, particularly because of the risks of "recursive self-improvement" – AI systems developed by other AI systems, without human intervention. His message was endorsed by other industry leaders: Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI (ChatGPT); Elon Musk, who runs SpaceXAI (Grok); and Demis Hassabis, co-founder of Google DeepMind (Gemini). Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump denounced the "negative forces" that "are bringing up things that won't happen."

It was in this context that Altman confirmed, on September 12, what everyone suspected: OpenAI will not go public in 2026. He cited security risks as the reason for the postponement. Investors are left wondering about the future of a company that is developing the world's most innovative product without ever having demonstrated how it intends to turn a profit.

The bigger surprise came from Anthropic, which is sticking to its IPO timetable despite everything. The company filed paperwork with market authorities in June to move forward in the coming weeks. On September 13, Bloomberg revealed that the company would be listed on the Nasdaq. According to the Financial Times, executives told investors that the company would turn a profit this quarter, for the second time in a row, despite massive investments in infrastructure to provide the necessary computing power. The group posted an annualized revenue of $65 billion (€56.3 billion) in July, a figure that could double by December.

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