Some CEOs Are Delivering Bleak Warnings About the Disruption, Fueling the Anti-AI Movement

IBL News | New York

OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Palantir’s Alex Karp both delivered bleak warnings about the disruption AI could bring, fueling the AI-fear narrative.

Specifically, Altman said AI is unpopular, but it will be treated like a utility someday, one that people will pay for.

Meanwhile, Palantir’s Karp warned on CNBC of AI’s extreme societal disruption, a negative impact on “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).

Karp framed the disruption as necessary for national security, linking AI to military superiority and to preserving U.S. power in a global tech race.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has warned that AI could wipe out huge swaths of white-collar jobs. He argued that the responsible path forward is to build the most powerful AI with strong guardrails before less careful competitors do. Anthropic raised $30 billion in February at a $380 billion valuation.

Privately, several AI CEOs told Axios they’re nervous an anti-AI wave could hit hard enough to power a “ban AI” movement heading into 2028.

“They’re scaring the bejeezus out of the public,” White House AI czar David Sacks said on the “All-In Podcast,” referring to a slew of recent comments from AI CEOs.

Anyway, AI is getting scarier and more unpopular as the technology improves and elections approach.

Only 26% of voters view AI positively, making it even less popular than ICE, according to an NBC News poll of 1,000 voters.