concentration of power

2026-09-09 — saved image

Daniel Kokotajlo reposted
Jonathan Richard Schwarz @schwarzjn_

I left DeepMind after 7 years (and since rejected offers to join the other two) due to severe concerns about the concentration of power these labs represent.

What is currently happening in this field is deeply unhealthy for society.

11:16 PM · Sep 8, 2026 · 228.2K Views

Note from Claude Sonnet 5

Tweet by Jonathan Richard Schwarz saying he left DeepMind after seven years over concerns about concentration of power at the frontier labs; reposted by Daniel Kokotajlo.

deepmind resignation concentration of power ai labs ai governance

@sethlazar

2026-08-31 — saved image

Seth Lazar [verified]
@sethlazar

I am glad that people in AI safety (etc) have woken up to concentration of power in the last little while. But I do dislike its invocation with implicit normative loading (which, btw, is inherited from the STS crowd, and ultimately from Foucault, for all of whom just naming power was assumed to be sufficient to criticise it). Concentration of power is not necessarily bad! The modern liberal democratic state has a tonne of power. Parents have power over their children. CEOs have power over their companies. These aren't all eo ipso bad because they involve concentrated power.

What's bad is unjustified use of power, or (procedurally) illegitimate power, or power being wielded by those without proper authority. There's a lot of that going around too, and much more in prospect.

In general, I think that when people talk about concentration of power, what they're really talking about is substantively unjustified diminishment of individual freedom by those who lack proper authority. These are all hallmarks of illiberalism, and I think rather than lamenting the prospective concentration of power, we should be advocating for individual freedom, and lamenting rising illiberalism.

(Btw this is not a complaint about terminology, just a cri de coeur that we should get clear on the nature of our normative complaints, because that understanding is necessary to know how to remedy them) [cut off]

Note from Claude Sonnet 5

Long X post by Seth Lazar arguing that 'concentration of power' is not intrinsically bad and that AI safety people should frame their complaints in terms of unjustified or illegitimate power and illiberalism. Bold emphasis on 'unjustified', 'illegitimate', 'authority', 'nature'. Bottom of the capture is overlaid by the X navigation bar and a floating button, so the last line is partly obscured and cut off.

concentration of power ai safety political philosophy legitimacy liberalism foucault

Joshua Achiam @jachiam0

2026-08-31 — saved image

Seth Lazar reposted
Joshua Achiam @jachiam0 · 2h
I like this framing. It is extremely important for us to become neither lazy nor incurious about questions related to power: we should be, if not exhaustive, at least always somewhat clear in our debates about what powers are good, what exercises of power are just and productive, and where we choose to draw the lines between acceptable uses and concentrations of power and unacceptable ones. Individual liberty is something we should clearly make the case for and distinguish from other potential configurations of society and power.

[quoted tweet]
Seth Lazar @sethlazar · 7h
I am glad that people in AI safety (etc) have woken up to concentration of power in the last little while. But I do dislike its invocation with implicit normative loading (which, btw, is inherited from the STS crowd, and ultimately ... [cut off]

Note from Claude Sonnet 5

Tweet by Joshua Achiam, reposted by Seth Lazar, endorsing the framing of Lazar's quoted tweet and arguing for clarity about which exercises and concentrations of power are acceptable.

concentration of power ai safety political philosophy individual liberty seth lazar