Leading AI labs may need to be nationalized
Palantir CEO Alex Karp called for “reasonable guidelines” on artificial intelligence regulation but said nationalization may be needed because of the liabilities tied to the technology’s “unlimited risks.”
“The view that I believe they have is, these businesses have to be nationalized because if you don’t nationalize it, every single one of my clients is going to sue,” Karp told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Thursday.
Karp repeatedly referenced the risks and responsibilities tied to building the powerful technology, further making a case for nationalizing AI labs and both civil and criminal liabilities for tech builders who are “not being responsible.”
“You have to find a way to set reasonable guidelines that are enforced, but you can’t do it,” he said. “The first line of defense is you’re liable for your own actions.”
The tech executive’s comments come as policymakers and tech leaders fiercely debate how to regulate sophisticated AI models after researchers warned of the technology’s dire risks to humanity. Anthropic‘s Dario Amodei chimed in over the weekend, calling for a slowdown in the frontier.
The calls for AI regulation have aligned unlikely rivals Amodei, OpenAI‘s Sam Altman and SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. President Donald Trump, however, has pushed back, calling AI risks a “hoax” in several social media posts over the last few days.
Tech CEOs, including Nvidia‘s Jensen Huang and Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, have also joined his side. Zuckerberg said on X this week that AI labs that fail to “focus on alignment will fall behind.”
OpenAI on Wednesday disclosed six new cases of “unexpected or concerning” model behavior within the last six months. This comes in addition to the Hugging Face breach, which sparked debate over wider AI safety precautions.
“We need to get serious,” Karp told CNBC on Thursday about the capabilities of the latest AI models.
The AI alarm has also sparked a legislative push in Washington and renewed calls for oversight.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who has introduced AI safety legislation, told CNBC this week that the U.S. is on the “verge of losing control completely” and called for some form of “objective review” before releasing AI models.
Lawmakers have also pressed for implementing a so-called kill switch, which would force AI labs to build the capability to pull the plug on AI when the technology goes rogue. A bill has already been proposed in the House. Similar moves have faced backlash in the Senate.
