Palantir CEO Alex Karp has hit out at the state of the AI industry, saying it was “effing insane” that the technology is being used in areas such as military and national security.
In a heated interview with CNBC Squawk Box, the controversial billionaire also hit out at top AI firms such as OpenAI, claiming he had spoken to major CEOs outside of the industry who were “livid” at how some companies are doing business.
Karp also accused some major AI companies of imposing a “wealth tax” on businesses by charging high fees for their services, all while collecting data which may be used to improve their own AI models and tools.
“Completely wrong”
Karp’s ire was particularly focused on the token model being used by the likes of Anthropic and OpenAI, especially as costs continue to rise, but companies look for a better return on their investment.
“I’m not throwing shade at them, but something has gone completely wrong,” he said. “The basic view among enterprises in this country is I’m going to chillax and waste my time with tokens.”
This includes a range of Chinese firms, with Karp warning the US not to underestimate the speed of progress being seen at its great rival.
Rising AI prices have led many businesses to pivot towards building and training their own models, rather than relying on outside providers, with so-called “open weight” models able to perform at a fraction of the cost.
Karp’s frustration was clearly visible, with one CNBC host commenting, “You sound pretty angry,” with the CEO responding, “This is the voice of American business that is being channeled through me.”
To shore up its own support, Palantir recently announced a major partnership with Nvidia which will see the latter’s AI services used to create custom models for US government agencies.
“What aligns me with Nvidia, and I think is what the technical customers want, which is control over their compute, their models, their data stack and their alpha,” Karp told CNBC. “They want to know they own the means of production. It’s not being transferred to someone else.”
This follows recent criticism by the US government of firms such as Anthropic, whose Mythos 5 and Fable 5 AI models were deemed a national security risk and shut down shortly after release.
Karp went on to criticize the US government for its reliance on AI companies in creating new technology for the military and national security.
“Are we really going to outsource the battlefield of this country to the consensus view in Silicon Valley? That is effing insane,” he noted.
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