I recommend reading the letter. Many of the comments here seem to have missed that the comment of "the world is in peril" is not referring to AI, but to the larger collection of crises going on in the world. It sounds to me like someone who realized their work doesn't match their goals for their own life, and is taking action. Maybe the cynics have a point that it is an easier decision to make when you are loaded wit…
And how exactly will studying (not even writing!) poetry address these crises? It's holier-than-thou bullshit written by a guy who has only gotten feedback from soulless status-seekers who were smitten by his position at Anthropic.
Being atomised hasn't improved how meaningful our lives are even though we created a lot of technology going that way. Can you say we have more meaning in life by being splitted apart? We have lots of entertainment and things to keep us busy but for a lot of people gratification comes from doing things together.
As a personal anecdote: I've personally enjoyed much more my times during summer helping a community of friends to build houses in their land than any time I was just travelling around. I pass by their houses every few weeks, have dinner with them here and there, and feel extremely happy to see those people living in structures I helped to build together with them. It's much more meaningful to me than any software I helped to develop used by literal hundreds of millions of people.
The lack of community untethers people from being humans, you can clearly see that in anyone that is chronically online.