Saturday, May 02, 2026

Sam, Elon, Cooperate On AI Safety, Compete On Commerce

Sam, Elon, Cooperate On AI Safety, Compete On Commerce

Elon Musk, Sam Altman, And Existential AI Safety



First, Elon has no case.

Larry Page alarmed Elon Musk when DeepMind beat AlphaGo. This was before ChatGPT 2.0. We are at 5.5 now. The world was supposed to end at 4. 

Elon was scared of ever powerful AI. Today he is busy building ever more powerful AI. The safety concerns are out the window.

He wanted to become CEO of OpenAI. The thought was not entertained, so he quit. At one point he was trying to merge OpenAI into Tesla. Tesla, point to be noted, was a for profit. It was not profitable at the time, or maybe a few years before that. But it was technically for profit. The for-profit legal jargon was a slogan at the time.

Two years ago, he tried to buy OpenAI, a for profit. When OpenAI refused, he launched xAI, which is pretty good.

The thing is, safety is still a concern. And OpenAI's ChatGPT has been for AI what Netscape was for the web. The popularizer. The one that went to the masses. The paradigm shift application for humanity. Humanity owes ChatGPT some, and then some.

While existential AI is still a deep, deep concern. There is nobody on Capitol Hill I'd trust to get it right. And there is no one tech entrepreneur I would want to trust with AI safety. The only sane way to think about AI Safety is for these guys to cooperate, like visibly cooperate.

Compete on commerce but cooperate on AI safety. AI is moving so fast there is no way politicians can keep up. But safety is a deep, deep concern.  

AI safety is not Elon versus Sam versus Dario. Or US versus China. It is man versus machine. The threat is existential. AI has been compared to nukes for a good reason. AI is capable of MADS: Mutually Assured Destruction Spectrum. 

AI is moving so fast, the only way humanity can stay safe is if the tech entrepreneurs collaborated on safety issues while competing on commerce. The current AI arms race is not safe forever, although so far safe. 

That cooperation needs to be concrete, visible, measurable, and major. 

I don't want to take sides. I want to think of a solution. 

Elon has asked that 150B be gives to the OpenAI Foundation. 

I ask that all AI tech entrepreneurs in the US, and China and elsewhere give 10% ownership of their companies to a Foundation that will work with a singular focus to end poverty globally through direct cash transfers to the poorest 20% of the population through the Aadhar-UPI framework. Where the framework does not exist, the Foundation will build it. To be taken to all countries. 

That is step one. 

Step 2: Billionaires, what you will consume, consume, what you will not consume, do a split on your shares so you keep your voting power, but give the money part away, to that same Foundation. 

AI and robotics take us to abundance. That is Elon's calculation. That was my calculation before Elon said it. 

The end point of abundance is not enough. We also need a smooth transition to that abundance. That smooth transition is this Foundation that will work to end poverty everywhere through direct cash transfers. 

Only if the likes of Elon and Sam do this will I feel they are capable of cooperating on AI Safety. Otherwise, I fear there is not a small chance they might together drive us off the cliff. 

Cooperate on AI Safety. Compete on commerce. End poverty along the way.   

This needs to be an out of court settlement where the two titans agree to this roadmap to end global poverty, and pledge to work together on AI safety, and bring together others like them into the ring. 


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