Staff Reports
A surprising and sharp public fight has broken out over who gets to control the future of artificial intelligence. Palantir’s chief technology officer, Shyam Sankar, just lit the fuse with a blistering essay and posts accusing the Effective Altruism movement of quietly driving the push to slow AI development. If you care about innovation, national security, or basic common sense, this moment matters.
Sankar’s charge: Effective Altruism is running the safety show
Shyam Sankar — chief technology officer and executive vice president at Palantir — wrote an essay and amplified it on social media. His message is blunt: “Effective altruism is the unseen force driving AI safety discourse.” He even warned that a tiny group of technocrats wants to decide how much technological progress the rest of us get. That is a stark claim. It points at the reality that some big funders linked to Effective Altruism have poured serious money into AI safety and alignment work.
What set this off: Anthropic warnings and a resignation
The immediate spark was a string of alarms inside frontier labs. A researcher at Anthropic, Jacob Coxon, resigned and said the teams building advanced AI are “racing straight to self‑improving superintelligence.” Anthropic’s alignment lead, Evan Hubinger, replied publicly that he thinks there is a meaningful chance advanced AI could be existentially dangerous. Those pronouncements made the safety crowd louder — and they made the industry nervous. Sankar’s column is his answer: don’t let a donor class or ideological clique shut down access to critical technology.
Why conservatives should care about both safety and freedom
There are two points that matter here. One: governments and companies should take real risks seriously and pursue sensible safety work. Two: we should not surrender innovation to a handful of unelected funders and activists who think they know what’s best for everyone. Palantir has a business interest in broad access to AI, yes. But so do the rest of us who value jobs, defense tools, and the economic gains from AI. The safer path is transparency — show the funding flows, name the programs, and let regulators and Congress decide, not a private donor circle or an online movement.
Bottom line: demand transparency, resist technocratic gatekeeping
This fight will shape policy in Washington and what companies are allowed to build. Conservatives should be wary of technocratic gatekeeping dressed up as moral urgency. Call out dangerous ideology where it exists, but don’t hand the keys to innovation over to a self‑selected few. The answer should be clear rules, public debate, and real oversight — not secretive campaigns to slow down the most important technology of the 21st century.
