Ex-Anthropic AI researcher quits with severe AI warning

We want to check in on some of our top stories of the day. The things that have you talking here in Central Florida, and you can also join the conversation by going to fox35orlando.com slash connect. You can also scan the QR code that you see on your screen right now and join the conversation that way. So joining us live now to talk about some of these big stories of the day. Pleased to be joined in the newsroom right now by Fox 35 news anchor Amy Kauffeld joining us live. Amy, we appreciate you joining us. Absolutely Garrett, good to see you and great to be here. Yeah, this is a fun new kind of segment we're trying out here today, kind of looking at some of these big stories. So we're going to talk about three big stories here today that really have people talking. Let's start by talking about sloths. And this is something that I know that we've been kind of looking into for months now. And Florida Fish and Wildlife holding a meeting today where they're going to be discussing some of these changes, some proposed rule change, and also going to be hearing, I'm sure, from a lot of folks in public comments. Yeah, absolutely. And so it was our reporter Hannah McKenzie who blew this story wide open several months ago. Garrett, as you know, this was something that was kind of flying under the radar. So we knew that there was this attraction that was going to be opening down on International Drive called Sloth World. We were kind of anticipating that it was going to open. People were excited about it. Everybody loves sloths, as you know. They're very popular creatures. What we didn't know, what was happening behind the scenes. And the reason FWC is coming up with these new rules is because they have figured out that the rules and regulations that were in place before this tragedy happened were simply not working. And part of the problem was the classification of sloths. Garrett, which you know, was very confusing for people, but sloths were basically categorized as basically a class three animal. They were in the same category as squirrels and other animals that you would be like, wait, a squirrel is a very common animal. You can see a squirrel on every street corner, right? But sloths were in that same classification. And so what was happening is the checks that were supposed to be being done, sort of these behind the scenes checks or checks that were supposed to be happening in warehouses where these animals might be held. Those checks were happening, but if a sloth were to die, there was no notification process for that. And so what we found out through our investigation and Hannah did some great work on this story is that dozens of sloths were dying. And so what they're doing now is they are trying to ensure that something like this does not ever happen again. Yeah, I think it was eye opening in many ways for folks to learn that those restrictions, those regulations were so lax that there really wasn't more in place when you're talking about the importation of a foreign non-native species in an animal that requires, as we have learned, quite a bit different care than something that might be easier to take care of. Yeah, no, you're so right. And we had the CEO from the Central Florida Zoo on just a couple of days ago, and he talked specifically about FWC and how they were quite literally doing the best they could with the resources and the regulations and the laws that were on the books. So now it is going to require a total overhaul of the way these animals are treated. And Garrett, also, as you know, a lot of these animals are coming through the Port of Miami. And so any animals that are being taken out of the rainforest in the Amazon or in other parts of the world, these animals are coming in, they often come in through Miami. So it's extremely important that Florida has these laws on the books that we toughen things up. We've heard a lot from Ana Escamani, from the state legislature, from everybody who's basically trying to come together. This has become a nonpartisan issue. Everyone wants to make sure something like this does not happen again. So I think that these new regulations, once we see what they are and they start coming out with ways to make sure that this doesn't happen again, I think a lot of people are gonna be pleased. Yeah, we'll see what happens with this meeting today. We'll have more coverage coming up later today on Fox 35 News. Now let's talk about something else that's been getting a lot of attention over the past few days, and that is this cargo plane crash in Miami. NTSB investigators have been on the scene for a couple of days now trying to figure out what happened here. And it sounds like their investigation is continuing, but still a number of questions that have to be answered as to what happened. Yeah, and a lot of factors go into these investigations, Garrett, as you know. But one of the things I think was a little shocking that came out in preliminary results was that the full stoppage brakes did not come into play, apparently, as these two men were coming into Miami International Airport. So that was something that they're taking a closer look at. There was some discussion, and not everything is gonna go on the cockpit voice recorder, right? Sometimes as a pilot or a co-pilot, you're making decisions that you're not saying out loud, right? You're just thinking in your head, okay, how do I get myself out of this situation? And so one of the things that they believe was perhaps in the process of happening is that they were going to abort, go back up and try again, when they realized that maybe perhaps it was coming in too fast. The landing gear, however, they did talk about in this preliminary report that the right side came down first, then the left side, that the plane did get a little too close, as you saw, to the end of the runway. The full stoppage brakes did not come into play, and so the plane went off the runway. Sadly, there was a van. I think there were seven workers who, I think they were workers who worked on the cleaning for the airplanes. Five of them were killed. There was another vehicle that was hit just outside of the airport gates. And Garrett, I think you've probably heard this too, that they're saying there are also some things going on at the airport with the way that these runways are made, that this plane never should have left the airport the way that that area is designed. Did you read something about that as well? I not specifically, no, but we did speak with an aviation expert who talked about the runways there and how they are a little bit longer and sometimes how that can in some ways kind of provide a false sense of security in some ways because of that. And so, you know, you talked about kind of landing a little bit kind of farther along than maybe they should have, but there's just a lot of issues here that we'll find out more. Our understanding too is that the NTSB gonna be speaking with the captain and the co-captain of that plane today. So that'll be interesting. They were just released from the hospital I think just yesterday. So it's gonna be interesting to see what comes from that as well. Yeah, absolutely. So Amazon's saying they will fully cooperate with this investigation. And these two, the pilot and co-pilot, they had a lot of hours. I mean, I don't believe that this was an inexperience issue. Could it have been pilot human error? It sounds like there were multiple factors that went into what happened here. It reminds you in a little bit of the, I know you remember this really well, Garrett, but that FedEx plane that had the issue up in Kentucky not too long ago. Again, a cargo plane, a horrific situation there. That one was like fully involved flames and just a horrific scene. So we're gonna hear a lot more about this and about what happened. Right now, Miami International still has two runways that are shut down as of this morning. This caused a lot of issues for Labor Day travelers, as you know, people trying to come back in or out of Miami because they had to fully shut down the airport for quite some time. So they are almost back to full operation, but two of those runways are still not operable. Finally here, let's talk about AI. That is a big topic of conversation today, especially after this report of an anthropic worker who quit over some concerns. And so that brings us to our poll question right now as well so you can join the conversation that way. How do you feel about the pace of AI growth? You see it on your screen there. So scan that QR code. You can also go to fox35orlando.com slash connect. Are you optimistic about it? Are you cautious about it, skeptical, or maybe a little overwhelmed? So Amy, talk with us about what we're learning from this report from this worker who says he quit. It's been getting a ton of attention across the country here in Florida, Governor DeSantis even talking about it. Yeah, so I think overwhelmed is gonna be the winner of this poll today because people are reading what this Jacob Coxon said this morning. And I think some people are full on panicking. We are hearing from virtually every lawmaker, both sides of the aisle, Garrett, who feel that it is time for the government to start reining this in and putting some guardrails around artificial intelligence. So here's what Jacob posted. This was actually posted at 8.04 last night, but really getting a lot of traction this morning. So Jacob said, do not underestimate the power of this technology. He started with, I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pre-training research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. How scary is that to hear that these two major companies are not acting responsibly? He goes on to say, they are racing straight to self-improving super intelligence and gambling with our lives. He went on to say, do not underestimate the power of this technology. These will soon be super human systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight and acquire real power and resources. We have all witnessed the progress in each of these domains and progress is not slowing. The people building AI earnestly believe that this could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible, but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger. So it goes on and on. I'm gonna stop there because I think that this is the part that is probably most shocking for all of us to hear and I think that it is the time for lawmakers to come to the table and say, what kind of parameters do we need to put on this industry, right? To me, it reminds me a lot of what we've been doing lately, which was we opened Pandora's box, we let things come out and then after that happens, we're like, how do we rein it back in? So I believe that is probably what a lot of these lawmakers who we are hearing from, including the governor, are talking about today. And this is an interesting thing too, because when you're talking about the power of AI and its capabilities, once Pandora's box is open, that's one thing that makes it a lot harder than many other things to kind of rein back in. So that's just another kind of thing that kind of gives you pause. So the governor talking about it on social media, Attorney General James Upmeyer was asked about it at that news conference in Miami just a little bit ago. Wanna play for you a little bit of his answer and what he had to say as well about this. Yeah, I literally saw the headline walking in here, so I haven't read all the nuances and details. But I think when you have these employees at big AI companies reaching out, screaming for help, saying what I'm seeing scares me to death, that this technology could get out of control and ultimately hurt us. And I'll give you an example, I won't name the company, but we dealt with something months ago where we found a company where the system was creating child pornography. And AI created child pornography is a crime here in Florida. And we reached out and the lawyers all, they fixed it very quickly. And the comment we heard was, well, we didn't want it to do that. We didn't design it to do that. It wasn't supposed to do that. But these things, they engage in machine learning. They're on the website or they're on the internet and they educate themselves. That's scary. You know, you've all read the Frankenstein book or seen the movie. If you create a monster and it goes out and kills somebody, you can't just wipe your hands and say, oh, not my fault. I didn't want it to do that. So we've got to buckle down fast. We've got to get out ahead of this quickly. I know this sounds like something from a sci-fi movie, but we've got technology for autonomous drone planes that are gonna be flying people around in a couple of years. You have self-driving vehicles that many of you probably thought you would not see in your lifetime. We've got rockets that go up and land themselves. This is all great if it's supporting and advancing mankind. If it's gonna hurt our kids, if it's gonna allow predators to create child porn, go after people, then we've got to engage quickly. We will bring lawsuits. We will hurt people in their pocketbook. And at the end of the day, we will seek judicial orders to make programmatic changes. So that was Attorney General James Uthmeyer just moments ago in Miami, or a little bit earlier in Miami, talking about things on his end. We have seen him file a number of lawsuits against some of these companies for different reasons. And a new one yesterday talking about some criminal penalties that he wants to see for when AI chatbots break the law. So it's still very much an evolving kind of frontier, legally and otherwise. One other thing, Amy, we saw the legislature, the state legislature this past session, the Senate passed what they called an AI Bill of Rights, essentially some consumer protections, some guardrails and things like that, stalled in the House, didn't end up going anywhere. There've been some calls for a special session to deal with something like this. But there's also that kind of push and pull, that tension between the federal lawmakers who say they wanna be the ones to take the charge on this and state lawmakers who say, well, something needs to be done. And if you're not gonna do it, we will. Yeah, no, you're right. I think that Jacob Coxon right now is the one person that not just in this country, but around the world, people are gonna be talking about, because this has worldwide implications. And I just wanna read to you what the governor had to say. This was what he tweeted or put on X at 920 this morning. He said, while some AI hysterics are aimed towards investors in advance of upcoming IPOs. So the timing of this is interesting because the IPOs are supposed to be coming out soon. He says that there is even a possibility that these technologies could elude human control is alarming. Technology, as we just heard Eth Meyers say, should enhance the human experience. It should never supplant it. And I think that that's the fear, Garrett. And it's the one thing that we've all been talking about is what's the end game. And that's a question we can't answer today. That's for sure. If you have been weighing in on our poll, you see there, it looks like we're tied right now between overwhelmed and cautious. So 80% of you certainly have qualms about the pace of AI growth right now. 18% saying optimistic. Well, another vote for overwhelmed just came in. It looks like that is now taking the lead. So really interesting to see that. We'll continue following up on this. Fox 35 news anchor, Amy Kaufeldt, we appreciate you joining us, breaking down some of these top stories here today. All right, we'll see you again soon. Thank you, Garrett. I enjoyed it.