Estonian entrepreneur Tallinn: 10–15% of top AI firms' staff want to end humanity
Estonian businessman Jaan Tallinn says a share of employees at the most influential AI companies actually aim to end human existence, a claim he made in a conversation with IT expert Linnar Viik that Delfi is publishing shortly before Anthropic's possible stock market listing.
Anthropic, the company behind the AI assistant Claude, could go public as early as October at a valuation of up to two trillion US dollars. Ahead of that possible event, news outlet Delfi has published a private conversation held last December between Estonian IT expert Linnar Viik and entrepreneur Jaan Tallinn, described as potentially Estonia's wealthiest person.
The conversation took place roughly a year after the two had last met. In it, Tallinn states that 10–15% of employees at the most influential AI companies actually regard ending human existence as their goal.
On the unpredictability of AI progress
Viik and Tallinn also discussed several AI-related issues of importance to Estonia. Tallinn notes that the only thing that can be reliably predicted about AI is that the technology will keep becoming more powerful, while the specific details of how that will unfold remain impossible to foresee.
In his view, it is more useful to describe AI not as "intelligence" — a term that immediately triggers disputes over what intelligence even is — but rather as a set of capabilities that machines possess and that continues to expand over time.
The conversation was published in connection with Anthropic's anticipated stock listing, which could become one of the largest technology-sector listings in recent times.
