AI CEOs are scaring America

It's a CEO's job to sell their product—not scare people that it'll ruin their lives. Tell that to OpenAI's Sam Altman and Palantir's Alex Karp, who've both delivered bleak warnings about the disruption AI could bring. Portraying AI as immensely powerful—even dangerous—reinforces the idea that only a few companies can build it safely. That's an effective message for fundraising but a scary pitch to consumers. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has warned AI could wipe out huge swaths of white-collar jobs and recently said he can't rule out that his own product, Claude, may be conscious. OpenAI's Altman recently said AI is unpopular, but it will be treated like a utility someday, one people will pay for—a tough sell amid a consumer affordability crisis and high gas prices. Palantir's Karp warned on CNBC of AI's extreme societal disruption—a negative impact to "the economic and therefore political power" of "highly educated, often female voters, who vote mostly Democrat," while boosting the relative position of vocationally trained, working-class people (often men).