Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir, said AI will transform society and that even those in the technology industry underestimate “how disruptive these technologies will be.”
“If you’re trying to significantly disrupt the economic power and ultimately the political power of a party’s base, the highly educated, predominantly Democratic female voters, and the military and working class who feel unsupported, if you believe that’s going to work politically, you’re in a mental hospital,” Karp told CNBC on the sidelines of AIPCon 9 in Maryland on Thursday.
Karp said AI will greatly disrupt white-collar jobs, putting more emphasis on the value of job skills and upending the Trump-era political paradigm.
“This technology will confuse and reduce the economic power of trained humanities voters, primarily Democratic voters, and increase the power, economic power of professionally trained working class, often male voters, and these disruptions will therefore disrupt every aspect of our society,” he said.
Research shows that many white-collar fields are most exposed to the initial wave of AI-related disruption. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has warned that up to half of white-collar, entry-level jobs could be eliminated by AI over the next one to five years.
Mr. Karp has long positioned himself and Mr. Palantir as champions of the working class, with a particular focus on the U.S. military. He declared the software company “totally anti-woke” and pushed back against employees who questioned the company’s contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Karp said the United States can only justify pursuing disruptive technologies such as AI if they are tied to national security.
“These technologies are socially dangerous,” he said. “Perhaps the only justification is that if we don’t do it, our adversaries will do it and we will submit to their rule of law.”
Later in the day, Karp sketched what could happen in a world that doesn’t come together in the face of AI. In particular, he called for an overhaul of the U.S. education system to prioritize skills-based training.
“The problem is, the danger is, if we don’t make these reforms, we’re going to end up with pitchforks, because the only solution people have is to go after the unlucky rich in technology, especially AI technology,” he said in a recent TBPN interview.
Palantir hasn’t said why, but the company recently relocated from Colorado, which has become increasingly Democratic in recent years, to Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis is overseeing an explosion of Republican support.
Karp contrasted America’s future with that of Germany, where he spent much of his time pursuing a doctorate at Goethe University in Frankfurt.
“There are a lot of people like you, young people who are creating things who feel held back, and it’s right to feel held back,” he said. “If we’re not careful, I don’t think the American version will be the German version. I think it will be ‘Hang the Rich.'”
