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What’s the real cost of chasing AGI? Power consolidation is just the start, says the AI Now Institute.

On today’s episode of Equity, Rebecca Bellan caught up with Amba Kak and Dr. Sarah Myers West from the AI Now Institute, a think tank focused on the social implications of AI and the consolidation of power in the tech industry. Their recent report, dubbed Artificial Power, lays out the political economy driving today’s AI frenzy and what’s at stake for everyone else.

Statement from Kate Brennan, Associate Director at the AI Now Institute on the remedy decision in US v. Google

Is the AI Bubble Too Big to Fail?

“We’re now locked into a particular version of the market and the future where all roads lead to big tech,” says Amba Kak, co-executive director of the AI Now Institute, which studies AI development and policy. Indeed, the success of major stock indexes—and perhaps your 401(k)—is resting on the continued growth of AI: Meta, Amazon, and the chipmakers Nvidia and Broadcom have accounted for 60 percent of the S&P 500’s returns this year.  

AI Now Chief AI Scientist Dr. Heidy Khlaaf Included on Time 100 AI 2025 List

Did Sam Altman Accidentally Admit That the AI Bubble Is Here?

Did Sam Altman Accidentally Admit That the AI Bubble Is Here? The economics seem fuzzy at best, but the largest AI companies are unlikely to take a financial hit because of U.S. government subsidies, says Amba Kak, co-executive director of the AI Now Institute, a policy organization.

Experts worry about transparency, unforeseen risks as DOD forges ahead with new frontier AI projects

“We’ve particularly warned before that commercial models pose a much more significant safety and security threat than military purpose-built models, and instead this announcement has disregarded these known risks and boasts about commercial use as an accelerator for AI, which is indicative of how these systems have clearly not been appropriately assessed,” Khlaaf explained.


How AI Adoption Is Sitting With Workers

There’s a danger to focusing primarily on CEO statements about AI adoption in the workplace, warns Brian Merchant, a journalist-in-residence at the AI Now Institute, an AI policy and research institute.

The A.I. Cold War

"The push to integrate A.I. products everywhere grants A.I. companies power that goes beyond financial incentives, enabling them to concentrate power in a way we've never seen before," Dr. Heidy Khlaaf, chief A.I. scientist at the A.I. Now Institute, told me.

Trump’s Big, Beautiful L.L.M.

Dr. Sarah Myers West, the co-executive director of the independent research institute AI Now, told me that the plan “reads like the wish list for Silicon Valley’s big A.I. firms.” OpenAI didn’t return a request for comment on the plan, but the company seems suitably pleased with the result—at least according to a LinkedIn post from chief policy officer Chris Lehane, the former Democratic consultant turned tech regulatory rainmaker, declaring that Trump’s A.I. plan will “fuel growth, opportunity, and innovation for everyone, everywhere.”

White House unveils sweeping plan to “win” global AI race through deregulation

"The White House AI Action Plan is written by Big Tech interests invested in advancing AI that's used on us, not by us," said Sarah Myers West and Amba Kak, co-executive directors of the AI Now Institute, which helped organize the statement.

Considering Trump’s AI Plan and the Future It Portends

Sarah Myers West: "We and a whole group of other organizations took a look at what the tea leaves were telling us about what to expect here and co-convened a group around an alternative plan because honestly, this is not the only path available to us on AI."

Trump AI plan rips the brakes out of the car and gives Big Tech exactly what it wanted

Kate Brennan, associate director of the AI Now Institute, called the whole plan a gift for the big tech companies that will build these datacenters. "Big Tech got exactly what it wanted in this action plan, and we're poised to see an acceleration that is built on deregulatory principles and very little consideration for the public at large," she warned.

Trump’s AI plan: Pull back restraints on tech

A coalition of privacy advocates, labor unions and other organizations are calling for a People’s Action Plan to counter the Trump administration’s proposals. Its signatories include the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Writers Guild of America East and research institute the AI Now Institute.

How the White House AI plan helps, and hurts, in the race against China

Sarah Myers West, co-executive director of the AI Now Institute, told Defense One that the new action plan “amounts to a workaround” of that failed provision.  “The action plan, at its highest level, reads just like a wish list from Silicon Valley,” she said.

Trump unveils AI plan that aims to clamp down on regulations and ‘bias’

"The White House AI Action plan was written by and for tech billionaires, and will not serve the interests of the broader public," said Sarah Myers West, co-executive director of the AI Now Institute.

Trump’s ‘AI Action Plan’ to mix tech industry wishlist with culture war attacks on ‘woke AI’

Amba Kak, co-executive director of the AI Now Institute, which helped lead the effort, said the coalition expects Trump’s plan to come “straight from Big Tech’s mouth.”

People’s AI Action Plan Launches to Provide Counter-Weight to Trump’s Industry-Backed AI Plan and EOs

Facebook blocked my family. We have no idea why.

Big Tech’s power "is contingent on a public that is submissive [and] passive,” as Amba Kak says in Brian Bergstein’s Boston Globe piece. But that's changing. The public is reasserting power and demanding a say in our technological future.