The billionaire paying AI researchers to stay out of Big Tech

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There's upsides and there's potential downsides, and that's true about technology in general. It's really true about AI, and I think we can cure cancer, perhaps most types of cancers completely by the end of my life.

What happens when every top AI researcher gets an offer they can't refuse? A few companies end up owning the future of the tech industry. Andy Konwinski, co-founder of Databricks and Perplexity, is trying to stop that. His new effort, LAAD, is putting over $100 million behind AI researchers to keep their work in the open instead of disappearing into big tech.

Actually, LAAD sits at right there and kind of paving the path, and it helps students know how to capture the world's attention. It's that much more important in the time of AI because AI researchers have left society behind entirely.

This week on the show, we discuss how the top researchers actually feel about where AI is headed, Anthropic's recent controversy with its new model, Fable, and why Andy thinks big tech should fund the open alternative. I'm Ellis Hamburger, founder of Meaning, a storytelling studio for tech companies.

And I'm Alex Heath, founder of sources.news, your home for scoops about the AI race.

Welcome to Access. [gentle music]

Andy, great to be with you here in an undisclosed location on the east side of LA that could only be described for people watching on video as Hogwarts.

[laughs]

I don't know. Although there's a bust of Ben Franklin behind you, so maybe Hogwarts isn't fair.

Maybe Ben Franklin was an alum of Hogwarts.

I think for anyone in tech who thinks they are a Renaissance man, this is where they would aspire-

Mm

... to do their best thinking and writing in Obsidian.

Yeah.

So, uh [laughs]

[laughs]

We're, uh, we have Ben Franklin behind us. We've got some beautiful, uh, artwork. It is, it is genuinely inspiring.

And your beard is also inspiring.

Yeah.

Oh, well, thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah. This is apparently, like, nearly every issue of Science that was ever published in bound form.

Behind us.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

Behind us.

Wouldn't Claude love to be here too?

[laughs]

[laughs] Let's talk about Claude.

I'm sure it'll go in, it'll go