Palantir CEO Alex Karp criticized the state of the AI industry, saying it was “crazy” that the technology is being used in areas such as the military and national security.
In a heated interview with CNBC Squawk BoxThe controversial billionaire also attacked major AI companies like OpenAI, claiming he had spoken to top CEOs outside the industry who were “furious” about the way some companies are doing business.
Karp also accused some major AI companies of imposing a “wealth tax” on companies by charging high fees for their services, while also collecting data that can be used to improve their own AI models and tools.
“Completely wrong”
Karp’s ire was particularly focused on the token model used by companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, especially as costs continue to rise but companies seek a better return on their investment.
“I’m not throwing shade at them, but something went completely wrong,” he said. “The basic opinion among companies in this country is that I’m going to sit back and waste my time with tokens.”
This includes a variety of Chinese companies, and Karp warned the United States not to underestimate the speed of progress seen at its big rival.
Rising AI prices have led many companies to pivot toward building and training their own models, rather than relying on third-party vendors, with so-called “open weight” models able to perform at a fraction of the cost.
Karp’s frustration was clearly visible: A CNBC anchor commented, “You seem pretty angry,” and the CEO responded, “This is the voice of corporate America being channeled through me.”
To bolster its own support, Palantir recently announced a major partnership with Nvidia that 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 technical customers want, is control over their compute, their models, their data stack and their alpha,” Karp said. CNBC. “They want to know that they own the means of production. They’re not transferring it to someone else.”
This follows recent criticism from the US government of companies such as Anthropic, whose Mythos 5 and Fable 5 AI models were deemed a national security risk and shut down shortly after their release.
Karp went on to criticize the US government for its reliance on artificial intelligence companies to create new technology for the military and national security.
“Are we really going to outsource this country’s battlefield to the consensus view of Silicon Valley? That’s crazy,” he said.
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