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Science & technology | Over and over<br>Will artificial intelligence soon escape human control?<br>“Recursive self-improvement” is both tantalising and worrying<br>Share
Photograph: Getty Images
Jun 7th 2026|9 min read
WHEN ANTHROPIC, an artificial-intelligence lab, debuts on stock markets later this year, it is likely to be one of the biggest initial public offerings in history. That’s because the company’s Claude chatbot is beloved of coders, who are willing to pay a lot for access. Since Claude Code, its software-engineering agent, launched in February 2025, it has become indispensable for many human developers around the world. That includes Anthropic’s own: more than four-fifths of the code it published in May was written by Claude, the company says. Before Claude Code launched, the percentage was “low single-digits”.
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