Public good. That’s the phrase they are using now. As if we haven’t already seen this movie a thousand times before. Hugging Face is out here trying to be the AI Robin Hood, LinkedIn’s founder is getting misty-eyed about AI ethics, and Google is playing benevolent overlord in France, as if any of these companies suddenly decided to develop a conscience overnight.
They haven’t.
They’ve just figured out a new way to sell us the same old lie. And this time it comes wrapped in the soft, cuddly language of “AI for all”.
Apparenty they have read my latest rant.
Sometimes the internet is quick to respond.
You buying it?
Didn’t think so.
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What happened?
Hugging Face’s CEO Clement Delangue is pushing for open AI, LinkedIn’s cofounder and billionaire venture capitalist Reid Hoffman is calling for AI to serve the public, and Google is launching an AI-for-good project in France. It all sounds like progress on the surface – big players talking about making AI more accessible and ethical. But the reality is, that AI is still controlled by a handful of corporations that own the data, the models, and the hardware. No matter how much they talk about the “public good,” the real power remains in the same few hands.
All of these initiatives were launched at the AI Action Summit in Paris, where world leaders, policymakers, and the bourgeoisie of Big Tech gathered to discuss the future of AI. The message was clear. AI should be ethical, accessible, and serve the public good (a.k.a. humanity). They launched a new initiative called Current AI which will help fund the creation of these kinds of AI public goods. They even put their money where their mouths are: $400 Million to fund efforts around new public datasets, open-source AI, and public accountability for AI systems.
Arthur Mensch, who is cofounder and CEO of the Paris-based, and only real open AI startup Mistral, also signed the letter. British entrepreneur and venture capitalist Brent Hoberman, who runs Founders Forum, and Ren Ito, the cofounder and chief operating officer of Japan-based Sakana AI, were also among the 10 initial signatories.
But behind the polished speeches and lofty promises, the same power structures remain untouched. The very corporations leading these initiatives are the ones that control the data, the infrastructure, and the economic engine of AI.
“Public good” makes for a great headline, but in reality, AI is still locked behind corporate gates, owned by the few, and sold back to the many.
The letter paints a picture of AI as a public good. They want to create so-called “high-value data sets” that will be publicly accessible in a “privacy-preserving and safe” way. What exactly will be in these datasets, the letter doesn’t say. But it strongly hints that at least some of it will include biological and medical data.
Yeah, yeah, like handing over sensitive health information to the same industry that turned personal data into a goldmine, is a good idea.
According to the letter, these shared resources would help nonprofits and researchers tackle life-threatening diseases like cancer, and it would also give start-ups a leg up. Sounds noble, but let’s not pretend this isn’t also about setting up a new ecosystem where the same corporations acting as gatekeepers get to dictate the terms of access, and deciding who benefits and who stays locked out.
The letter also pushes for incentives to develop smaller, more “people-focused” AI models that are allegedly greener and more accessible. Open-source AI, it says, should be safer, more transparent, and easier to use. Which all sounds great, on paper, until you remember that “open-source” in this space increasingly means “open enough to create adoption, but closed when it really matters”.
One of the loudest voices behind this initiative is Hugging Face’s CEO, Clément Delangue, whose company acts as an AI model marketplace.
Delangue has been a strong advocate for open-source AI, and is positioning Hugging Face as a counterforce to the walled bastions of Big Tech. But the thing is that with AI’s infrastructure and training costs already concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie of Big Tech, the question remains, how much of this “public good” will actually be public, and how much will still serve the same old power structures?
It’s all for the greater good, uhm, …profit
So here’s the reality check. AI isn’t being democratized. It’s being centralized, enclosed, and locked behind a paywall which is so high that you’ll need a corporate sponsorship just to peek over the top. The same way that industrial capitalists once stole our land and labor, the new digital aristocracy is stealing intelligence itself.
They harvest data, extract human creativity, hoard compute power, and then tell us with a straight face that it’s all for “the greater good.”
No.
It’s for the greater profit.
Always has been.
And let’s talk about Hugging Face for a second.
They’ve positioned themselves as the plucky underdog, the anti-Big-Tech company who is fighting for open AI.
Sure.
And I’m the Queen of England.
They are raising millions from VCs, and rubbing their elbows with the same people who gatekeep the entire industry, and getting fat on the very data scraps that we’re all tossing into the digital void.
Open-source AI?
More like the illusion of open-source AI.
You can tweak the edges, maybe even download a model or two, but when it comes to the real power, you know, the infrastructure, the GPUs, the training data, good luck. That’s all tucked away in the servers of the tech elite, just out of reach.
LinkedIn’s co-founder, Reid Hoffman, wants AI to be used for “public good”.
Whatever that means, man.
This is coming from a man who helped build the very algorithms that turned the internet into a marketplace for human capital. Ever scrolled through LinkedIn lately?
Bet you have, otherwise you wouldn’t have ended up here in my messy rants.
LinkedIn is a never-ending parade of automated corporate sermons, engagement-bait job posts, and soulless networking, and not to mention that it’s full of Facebook like ads. LinkedIn is social media’s version of a Ponzi scheme, where the real currency is attention.
Then there’s Google’s little project in France, a so-called initiative to develop AI that benefits the public.
Uh-huh.
Google. . . . .
Yes, the company that turned the internet into a surveillance empire, is now pretending to care about the greater good?
Forgive me if I don’t start a slow clap.
These are the same people who scooped up the entire planet’s data, commodified our searches, and built an ad empire that would make Orwell blush. And now, they want us to believe they’re suddenly in it for the people?
Please.
Let’s get one thing straight for posterity. . .
At current, AI doesn’t belong to the public. It belongs to those who control the means of computation.
The GPU barons.
The cloud landlords.
The digital feudalists who own the models, the chips, the datasets, and the electricity that fuels this whole damn system. They don’t just own the tools of production. They own cognition itself. And they’re not about to let go.
Think about it.
You don’t own your software anymore. Because of the “subscription economy” you rent it. Thank you Tien Tzuo for your marvelous idea. We don’t own your data anymore. It is siphoned off and monetized before you even hit ‘Enter.’ You don’t even own your goddamn intelligence, because every question you ask a chatbot, every image you generate, every text you feed into the machine is just another input to train the AI that someone else will profit from.
They are calling it innovation?
I call it theft.
The people of old fought to seize the means of production, rights for the workers, unions, good pay. Money for value. Some countries even went through a civil war to get there.
The new war is over the means of intelligence.
But now it’s different.
This time, you’re not even a worker.
You’re a data cow, a content farm, a human-shaped stream of behavioral insights that they process, package, and sell back to you. And just like the factory owners of the 19th century, the AI bourgeoisie want to make sure you never see a cent of the wealth you helped create.
And yet, for some reason, we still aren’t fighting back.
Why?
Because they keep us entertained.
The Romans called it bread and circuses. Today, it is ChatGPT that is writing your emails, Midjourney that is making your art, and AI-generated influencers who are whispering sweet deals into your ear.
Generative AI is the new opiate of the masses. It is digital pacifier that is designed to keep us docile while the real power gets consolidated.
So what now?
Regulation?
Yeah, right.
More shit coming from Brussels. . .
And talking about that, regulation is just another way for the biggest players to write the rules in their favor. They’ll put up a show about “AI safety”, about how we need to control the risks, but the only thing they’re really controlling is competition. They don’t fear AI becoming dangerous. They fear AI becoming uncontrollable. They fear losing their grip on the intelligence economy.
The only real solution is to take back control.
Not through corporate partnerships. Not through performative open-source gestures. But by refusing to accept the system as it is. By fighting for AI that is truly public – not in name, but in ownership. AI that isn’t a rental service, a subscription model, a gated luxury, but an actual, tangible asset for the people who built it.
Because if we don’t?
If we let them keep this power?
Then welcome to the new age of digital feudalism, where intelligence is a commodity, access is a privilege, and the rest of us are just serfs, paying a monthly fee to think.
The AI commons must be reclaimed. This isn’t a request. It’s a demand.
And if they don’t listen?
We take it back anyway.
Signing off from the trenches of the AI war.
Marco
Well, that’s a wrap for today. Tomorrow, I’ll have a fresh episode of TechTonic Shifts for you. If you enjoy my writing and want to support my work, feel free to buy me a coffee ♨️
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