Record AI Funding: Who Benefits When Intelligence Gets Expensive
Historic venture capital investment in AI raises hard questions about wealth concentration and democratic access to the most powerful technology ever created.
The Concentration Problem
Frontier AI development requires extraordinary resources. Fewer than ten organisations worldwide can train frontier models, overwhelmingly based in the US and China. The rest of the world is a consumer, not a producer.
Why Valuation Matters for Democracy
When a small number of companies control the most powerful technology, governance is effectively privatised. Corporate boards -- not elected representatives -- decide what AI can do, which languages it prioritises, and whose values it reflects.
The Public Investment Argument
AI development has been substantially subsidised by public investment: government research, public universities, tax incentives. Yet returns flow overwhelmingly to private shareholders.
Democratic alternatives exist: public AI infrastructure, open-source mandates for publicly-funded research, sovereign AI funds, and a global AI commons.