Palantir CEO Alex Karp Wants 1 Country To Oversee International AI Standards, And It's Not The US

Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies Inc PLTR, while speaking at the 2023 Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, was asked whether democracies and the free world can compete with authoritarian regimes, particularly in the context of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Highlighting the progress being made in the United States, Karp said, "The innovations are being done on the West Coast of the U.S.," while expressing concern that Western countries may undercut their own potential with misplaced investments. "Our problem in the West is we have an ecosystem that is not 100% focused on our advantages. It's focused on technologies of the past."

According to Karp, there are only two or three companies globally that have functional products in the realm of large language models, emphasizing the gap between potential and reality.

He criticized the majority of companies that avoid addressing the ethical complexities of artificial intelligence, stating, "What do the rest of the companies do? 'We have to have a discussion. Can't Do it. Can't work with it. The issues are too complicated.' And like you sit there and have technical discussions with them about, well, actually you can do it, this is how you segment the data, these are the norms."

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Karp suggested that a small, rule-abiding country like Denmark should oversee international AI standards. "I think Denmark should be in charge of this. It shouldn't be America. It shouldn't be other countries," he contended.

He urged Western countries to allocate a significant portion of their budgets to battlefield-tested software. "In the military context, we have to start buying software that's been proven on the battlefield. A significant portion of our budget has to go to that," Karp said.

Addressing the competitive landscape, the Palantir CEO said, "We are the only market right now on large language models and that's going to stay that way for a long time." However, he stressed the need for reform and action, stating, "We need to reorient very quickly."

Karp also recommended a federal budget for innovation focused on intimidating adversaries: "Let's have 10% of our budget, scare-our-enemy budget. That should be our budget."

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Photo: World Economic Forum on Flickr and Shutterstock