财经外刊精选 · 2026-09-09（晚间版）

An AI researcher has quit his job and warned that the technology "could kill us all by the end of the decade". Jacob Coxon, a researcher at American AI safety and research company Anthropic, made the chilling warning on X and is urging people to "not underestimate the power of this technology."

Mr Coxon said in the post on Wednesday (September 9): "I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below."

He continued: "The people building AI earnestly believe that it 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."

Evan Hubinger, Anthropic's staff lead on keeping the technology aligned with human goals and values, replied to the post and said Mr Coxon is correct. He believes there is less than a 10% chance of AI killing all humans within the next decade. He wrote: "Jacob is correct here — we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade. I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to."

According to the Wall Street Journal, Mr Coxon quit Anthropic over concerns about the push to build self-improving AI systems that have the capability to threaten humanity. The researcher told the publication that he believes the world is on track for a "lot of the most aggressive of these scenarios where by the end of next year things could be out of control already."

Anthropic builds advanced AI systems and aims to make them more reliable, understandable and safe. The company was started by former OpenAI researchers, including siblings Dario Amodei (CEO) and Daniela Amodei (President), in 2021.

Mr Coxon said the "stakes are well-understood" within the company. However, they are "locked in a race" to develop the technology first as "they believe no one else will act responsibly, so they must do it themselves, despite the risk."

He continued: "If you are a lab researcher, I urge you to consider what the next few years will actually feel like. Do you want to kick off a superintelligent RL run without a rigorous understanding of its mind? Should you put your head down because 'it's happening anyway' — or take this moment to call for different conditions?"

There are multiple theories on how AI could cause human extinction. They range from goal misalignment and autonomous weaponisation to the collapse of critical infrastructure and loss of control. Experts say that AI could calculate when humans plan to turn it off or alter its programming. As this would prevent it from achieving its goals, the technology could then opt to eliminate the threat of being shut down. The integration of AI into military systems and weapons could lead to escalation. They have the potential to trigger conflicts faster than human decision-makers.

AI also has the ability to weaponise code which could shut down electric grids, healthcare systems and water facilities. This could lead to society collapse or mass conflict.

Anthropic and OpenAI have been approached for comment.

Over a decade ago, Ohio lawmakers exempted tech companies from sales taxes on computer servers and other equipment needed for data centers, betting that changes worth millions of dollars would lure much-needed investment to the state. It worked, turning Ohio into one of the leading destinations for data centers. But then the artificial-intelligence boom supersized the tax exemption, pushing it to more than $1.5 billion last year, more than 10 times the original state estimate.

Voter outrage after news outlet Signal Ohio reported the scale of the provision prompted Republican Gov. Mike DeWine to pause new applications for the sales-tax exemption in May. Now, some state lawmakers, including Democratic Rep. Tristan Rader, want to repeal the sales-tax exemption and renegotiate past deals with companies such as Amazon.com, Meta Platforms and Alphabet's Google that secured exemptions for decades by signing contracts with the state. In several states, the exemptions for tech giants have exceeded $1 billion annually.

"They seem to have more money than God and they're able to build without the need for these types of incentives," said Rader, who is proposing new data-center taxes and requirements that developers pay more for power and electrical infrastructure. He represents parts of Cleveland, where locals have pushed back against the facilities, and he hopes the new threats force the companies to the negotiating table.

A similar dynamic is playing out across the country, as legislators or governors in more than 10 states, including Illinois, New Jersey and Washington, have slammed the brakes on the tax breaks. The reversals underscore how state leaders who once welcomed the facilities powering the AI boom as an economic engine suddenly treat them like a political liability. Dozens of other states including Texas have proposed similar bills or steps, potentially costing the industry billions in tax benefits. That has the potential to push future projects to states such as Indiana, West Virginia and Wyoming that have retained favorable tax regimes, industry executives and advisers say.

Industry advocates are telling state officials that other taxes they pay fund local schools and police departments and that eliminating incentives will force data centers to move elsewhere. Amazon said it has invested nearly $40 billion in Ohio data centers since 2015, creating thousands of jobs, and paid almost $11 million in state property taxes and fees last year. Meta and Google declined to comment, as did DeWine's office.

A nationwide rebellion

The assault on tax provisions is the latest example of the nationwide rebellion against AI due to fears about power and water consumption, a dynamic that candidates are watching closely ahead of November's elections. A city council member in Independence, Mo., John Perkins, was recently voted out of office after he voted to approve billions in tax incentives for a data center.

"Our industry has been knocked on our backfoot," said Steve DelBianco, chief executive of NetChoice, a tech-industry group that fights regulation. DelBianco said that the backlash is based on misinformation and that he has warned state officials that eliminating incentives would hurt their economies.

President Trump has urged voters to welcome the facilities despite recent polls showing Americans overwhelmingly don't want data centers near them. "If you want to get rich as a state or as a town and if you want to pay lower taxes, if you want to create tremendous wealth, if you want your house to be more valuable and everything else, you're going to want a data center," he said Friday. "If you want to go through poverty, crime, and squalor, I would say don't approve data centers."

More than 35 states offer sales-tax exemptions or similar benefits to data-center developers. That sales-tax treatment is a crucial piece of financing because the computer chips and servers inside the facilities represent a significant chunk of the projects' costs, and because that equipment gets replaced every few years. Avoiding that tax, often 6% or 7%, on hundreds of millions or billions of dollars of equipment helps determine where a data center goes, industry executives say.

The exemptions are, in some respects, similar to the treatment of manufacturers' purchases on inputs to factories, which is designed to prevent cascading layers of the same tax on the same product. Many of the data-center exemptions include specific job-creation and investment targets. Local governments have also offered property-tax abatements to attract the centers, which in the long run can generate revenue to fund schools and police departments.

Federal tax changes have also improved the economics of the data center build-out. Last year's Republican tax law brought back immediate deductions for equipment purchases that would otherwise be depreciated. And future centers may be able to use the Opportunity Zone program, which will soon offer enhanced tax breaks for certain rural investments.

Caught off guard

A decade ago, when states like Ohio passed the tax provisions, data centers were a fraction of their current size and used for powering websites and streaming services.

Huawei is helping China to develop its own chip-making equipment – FT

Huawei is investing in Chinese chipmakers and helping them test their designs at local factories, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter, as it seeks to reduce China's dependence on foreign technology and export restrictions.

This primarily concerns lithography machines, which use light to transfer electronic circuit designs onto silicon wafers. Chinese chipmakers rely heavily on such machines from Dutch company ASML, while local developers lack their own high-precision optics and powerful light sources.

One of the key participants in the Chinese project is Shanghai-based Yuliangsheng. It is developing equipment that uses deep ultraviolet radiation — a technology called DUV. According to FT sources, the equipment is already being tested at SMIC and other Chinese manufacturers' factories, as well as on Huawei's own production lines.

In the future, the developers want to produce advanced chips for artificial intelligence on these installations. For now, they are being tested on simpler microcircuits and refined. One of the FT interlocutors claims that by the end of 2026, Yuliangsheng plans to produce 12 machines. This does not mean that they are ready for mass production of advanced chips.

According to Bernstein analyst Lin Qingyuan, Huawei is coordinating the cooperation of component suppliers, equipment developers and factories. A working prototype is not enough: the devices need to be tested on production lines for years, improving their reliability and speed of operation.

It has not yet been possible to completely abandon foreign parts. According to two sources, the FT, Yuliangsheng uses projection lenses from the German Zeiss. Zeiss itself told the publication that it sells lithographic optics only to ASML. The newspaper's interlocutors in the industry suggest that the lenses can be purchased on the secondary market in China, but the specific route of their supply has not been established.

Huawei is backing local alternatives. Its investment arm Habo and the Shenzhen Yuanzhi Xinghuo fund, which the company backs, have invested in Fujian Zhiqi Photonics, which is working on ultra-precision optics to replace Zeiss. Habo has also invested in Beijing RSLaser Opto-Electronics, a manufacturer of light sources for lithography machines.

According to the FT, Yuliangsheng has separated from SiCarrier, a company that the publication previously reported had close technical and business ties with Huawei. Huawei has denied any connection to SiCarrier.

China already reported the start of mass production of its own DUV machines in July. However, according to the FT, local factories still rely on ASML machines, and it will take several more years for Chinese counterparts to reach comparable performance.

The rules governing global shipping are breaking down, disrupted by wars and a rapidly growing shadow fleet operating beyond Western oversight, the world's largest maritime nations warned in a rare joint statement Tuesday.

The Consultative Shipping Group (CSG), representing 18 shipping nations that together account for more than a fifth of global trade by tonnage, said decades-old laws ensuring free navigation and the neutrality of commercial vessels are collapsing, posing a severe risk to global trade.

"Without maritime trade, supply chains would fragment and the global economy as we know it would come to a sudden halt," the group said in the statement, its first public intervention since the CSG was established more than 60 years ago.

'Not episodic shocks,' but a 'structural shift'

The CSG said the battle to control the Strait of Hormuz, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the shadow fleet created by U.S., EU and UK sanctions are not "episodic shocks" but "signals of a structural shift in the operating environment of global trade."

"Shipping routes are increasingly instruments of leverage and risk," the group warned, adding that recent events demonstrate how fragile the maritime trade system has become.

CSG members include Greece, Singapore, Denmark, Japan, Canada, the U.K., the Netherlands, Germany and South Korea, among others. Brian Wessel, director-general of the Danish Maritime Authority, which chairs the CSG, told the Financial Times that deepening concerns about fragmentation in the maritime sector and the erosion of standards set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) prompted the rare statement.

"For decades, we have built global trade on the assumption that ships can move freely across borders. That assumption is now under pressure," Wessel said, adding, "The global level playing field (and) the global regulations that we've made for many, many years in the IMO have been taken for granted."

More than 80% of world trade is transported by ships operating under IMO rules. The IMO was formally established in 1948, though the concept of international governance of the oceans traces back to the 17th-century doctrine of mare liberum, or "free seas."

A growing 'two-tier system'

The CSG warned that an increasing number of vessels are now engaging in operations that circumvent sanctions, describing an "unregulated shadow fleet" of hundreds of ships operating outside standard insurance, safety and transparency frameworks.

"This creates parallel systems within global shipping, increases risk, and bypasses environmental and safety standards, undermining trust and predictability in maritime markets," the group said.

"The result is a two-tier system, one governed by rules, the other by opacity, ultimately weakening both," the group noted.

According to TankerTrackers.com, the shadow fleet of oil tankers now numbers more than 1,500 vessels, nearly a fifth of the global tanker fleet, with nearly all lacking traditional insurance policies. This summer, the Caroline Bezengi, a shadow fleet ship carrying roughly 800,000 barrels of Russian oil, struck a limpet mine off the coast of Oman while uninsured, potentially leaving the Omani government responsible for millions of dollars in cleanup costs.

Shipping as a tool of geopolitical leverage

Russia, Ukraine, the U.S. and Iran have all struck civilian shipping targets during conflicts this year, while the vulnerability of maritime chokepoints has been underscored by Iran's efforts to establish a fee-paying regime in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran said Monday that a deal with Oman to manage shipping through the strait, through which about a fifth of the world's oil and gas previously flowed, was close to being finalized, though it remains unclear whether a toll would be charged.

Shipowners and maritime organizations have warned that charging such a fee would set a dangerous precedent, potentially prompting other countries bordering critical chokepoints to follow suit.

CSG calls for renewed international cooperation

The CSG called on maritime nations to "actively support and uphold the core principles governing shipping," urging enforcement of existing international rules across jurisdictions and political backing for developing and maintaining common standards.

"Strong international cooperation is not a constraint on sovereignty; it is a prerequisite for effective governance in an interconnected world," the group said. "Allowing fragmentation to deepen, undermines the global rules-based maritime framework and increases the risk of disruptions at key maritime chokepoints. As the closure of the Strait of Hormuz demonstrates: When shipping supply chains fragment, the global economy fragments with it."

The group also warned that "discriminatory trade measures" compound the effects of disruptions already impacting maritime navigation, noting, "Global shipping works best when rules are clear and consistent around the world. Uncertainty about future access to ports or routes can affect long-term commercial planning. When countries begin to pursue diverging approaches, regional initiatives or stalled multilateral processes weaken the coherence of the system. Fragmentation in rules leads directly to fragmentation in markets and ultimately to higher costs for businesses and consumers."

U.S. stock futures were steady and Treasury yields ticked higher after Brent crude oil briefly topped the $100 a barrel mark for the first time since July in early morning European trade.

American forces destroyed five Iranian oil tankers in response to attacks by Iran on U.S. warships, U.S. Central Command said, adding pressure to an already tight oil market. Shrinking storage levels and rising Chinese demand are biting as markets increasingly anticipate an indeterminate block to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Brent crude oil contracts for November delivery were last 2% higher at $99.88 a barrel, while WTI rose 1.5% to $94.45 a barrel.

Despite oil passing the $100 mark, U.S. stock futures largely held firm after following Dow-led losses in the last session. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 0.1% lower, while S&P 500 futures were flat. Nasdaq futures added 0.15%.

Treasurys fell on the surge in Brent, with yields rising through the European morning. Yields on 10-year Treasurys rose by 1.5 basis points to 4.809%, while 30-year yields added 1.1 basis points to 5.259%. Eurozone bond yields also ticked higher ahead of the European Central Bank's policy decision Thursday.

Asian equity indexes were mixed as the Nikkei 225 slipped 0.2% while the Shanghai Composite added 0.3%. European stocks responded more negatively to higher Brent and natural gas prices, with the continent-wide Stoxx 600 dropping 0.5%.

"European indices are more vulnerable to changes in energy prices and the global economic outlook, as they are more cyclical than their international peers," Swissquote's Ipek Ozkardeskaya wrote in a research note.

In currency markets, the yen strengthened further against the dollar after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dared traders to bet against the Japanese currency. "I am the house now," Bessent said at an event in Texas Tuesday, pointing out the Treasury's asymmetrical access to market-sensitive information. The greenback fell to its lowest level in nearly three weeks against a basket of currencies, and dropped 0.6% to 153.05 yen.

Bitcoin rose 1% to $79,249.20, though the cryptocurrency continued to find resistance at the $80,000 mark. Gold futures also nudged higher, rising 0.4% to $4,455.39 a troy ounce.

For the day ahead, the U.S. Treasury's increase in buybacks for longer-dated bonds will kick in.