On October 18, Anthropic, the artificial intelligence (AI) laboratory preparing one of the largest listings in history, committed 5 per cent of its shares to a public benefit fund. The next day, Elon Musk promised one SpaceX share, next year, for “every kid in America” – about US$10.6 billion for some 73 million children.
The offers differ in who holds the shares. Anthropic’s will sit in an entity the company owns, spent on the public’s behalf; Musk’s would land, by a route he has not explained, in a child’s name. Should the public own the companies AI makes rich? Silicon Valley has begun answering yes, on its own terms.
This came a week after International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva described AI as a “slow-moving tsunami”, shifting income from labour to capital, that could augment, downgrade or eliminate 40 per cent of jobs worldwide. She spoke in Bangkok; Asia is where economic growth has long depended on creating jobs.