Palantir CEO Alex Karp has hit out at the state of the AI industry, saying it was “pretty crazy” that the technology is being used in areas like the military and national security.
In a heated interview with CNBC Squawk Boxthe controversial billionaire also hit out at top AI firms such as OpenAI, claiming he had spoken to major CEOs outside the industry who were “lively” about how some companies do business.
Karp also accused some big AI companies of imposing a “wealth tax” on businesses by charging high fees for their services, all while collecting data that can be used to improve their own AI models and tools.
“Totally wrong”
Karp’s ire was particularly focused on the token model 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 terribly wrong,” he said. “The basic perception among companies in this country is that I want to relax and waste my time with tokens.”
This includes a number of Chinese firms, with Karp warning the US not to underestimate the speed of progress of its major rival.
Rising AI prices have led many companies to turn towards building and training their own models rather than relying on external 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 corporate America being channeled through me.”
Bolstering its own support, Palantir recently announced a major partnership with Nvidia that will see the latter’s AI services used to create customized models for US government agencies.
“What aligns me with Nvidia, I think, is what the technical customers want, which is control over their computer, their models, their data stack and their alpha,” Karp told CNBC. “They want to know that they own the means of production. It’s not being transferred to someone else.”
This follows recent criticism from 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 to create new technology for the military and national security.
“Are we really going to outsource the battlefield in this country to the consensus view of Silicon Valley? It’s insane,” he noted.
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