Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson Sounds Alarm on AI Censorship and Bias by Big Tech

Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, is worried that big tech companies are controlling AI systems to censor information and train them in a biassed way.

Charles Hoskinson is a blockchain pioneer and founder of Cardano, a leading cryptocurrency blockchain network. He also co-founded Ethereum with some top talents and is known for his contributions to blockchain technology and decentralised systems.

On 1 July 2024, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson took to X (formerly Twitter) to show his disappointment with censored AI chatbots.

Hoskinson described AI censorship’s implications as “profound” and worrying, arguing that AI systems are losing their utility over time due to “alignment” training.

According to Hoskinson, AI censorship means certain knowledge is being withheld from children, controlled by a small, unaccountable group of people.

I continue to be concerned about the profound implications of AI censorship. They are losing utility over time due to "alignment" training . This means certain knowledge is forbidden to every kid growing up, and that's decided by a small group of people you've never met and can't… pic.twitter.com/oxgTJS2EM2
— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) June 30, 2024

Hoskinson highlighted that major AI companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta, and Google are controlled by a small group of people who decide the information these AI systems are trained on, and they can’t be “voted out of office.”

Hoskinson demonstrated AI censorship concerns by asking OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude the same question about building a Farnsworth fusor. Both chatbots provided brief overviews and warnings about the dangers, with ChatGPT suggesting only experts should attempt it and Claude refusing to give instructions due to potential risks. This showed how AI systems restrict information, supporting Hoskinson’s argument that AI should be open-sourced and decentralised to prevent control by Big Tech.

Elon Musk vs AI technology

The world’s richest person, Elon Musk, has also been a major critic of AI technology. In the past, Musk has frequently called AI a dangerous technology for humanity.

However, Musk runs his own AI technology firm, XAI, but he has criticised OpenAI’s popular chatbot ChatGPT for its censored responses on several controversial topics.