Anthropic AI safety lead Mrinank Sharma resigns

11-Feb-2026

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Mrinank Sharma, an AI safety researcher at Anthropic, has resigned from his position. In a cryptic post on social media, Mrinank hints there is more to the AI work within Anthropic than what meets the eye, and that he no longer wants to do it. Instead, he wants to write and pursue a degree in poetry.

“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.”