AI Engineers Are Using AI to Build Better AI (What Could Possibly Go Wrong?)

Anthropic's co-founder casually mentions using their AI to code more AI, and suddenly every sci-fi writer is feeling rather smug about their career choices.

Remember when the scariest thing about artificial intelligence was the possibility that it might beat us at chess? Those were simpler times. Now we're casually discussing AI helping to build better versions of itself over cocktails at tech conferences, and everyone's acting like this isn't literally the plot of every dystopian science fiction film ever made.

Let's talk about Daniela Amodei's recent bombshell at The Information's Women in Tech, Media and Finance conference. The Anthropic co-founder and president revealed that their developers are using Claude (their AI chatbot) to help with coding. Which, on the surface, sounds rather innocuous – like telling someone you're teaching your dog to fetch the newspaper. Charming, right? Except in this case, the dog is learning to write its own DNA sequence.

But before we all start stockpiling tinned goods and learning to fight robots, let's break this down properly.

First, there's the delicious irony of AI engineers using AI to engineer better AI. It's like inception, but with more Python and fewer Leonardo DiCaprio squints. Amodei mentioned that Claude needs "some coaching" – a phrase that sounds reassuringly human until you realise it's exactly what a superintelligent AI would want us to think. ("Oh yes, we definitely need human oversight. wink wink")

The really fascinating bit, though, is when Amodei casually dropped this neutron bomb: they're reconsidering their headcount plans for next year because of this development. Translation: "Why hire expensive humans when we have perfectly good artificial ones at home?" It's the corporate equivalent of replacing your entire kitchen staff with a very sophisticated microwave.