The billionaire bunker problem: how the people building AI safety tools are simultaneously buying escape plans from the world those tools are supposed to save - Silicon Canals

"Here is a person who controls one of the most consequential AI companies on Earth, who gives speeches about ensuring AI benefits all of humanity, who simultaneously maintains a personal escape plan from the humanity he claims to be saving. And he is far from alone. The Venn diagram of people working on AI safety and people investing in bunkers, bolt-holes, and backup citizenships is practically a circle at the top of the tech wealth pyramid."

"Reid Hoffman estimated that more than fifty percent of Silicon Valley billionaires had acquired some form of 'apocalypse insurance.' That was in 2017. Since then, the AI boom has minted new fortunes and new anxieties in roughly equal measure. New Zealand remains the preferred destination. Its geographic isolation, stable governance, and immigration policies make it the ultimate hedge."

Silicon Valley billionaires, particularly those leading AI companies, present a paradox: they publicly champion AI safety and technological progress for humanity while privately securing escape routes through bunkers, backup citizenships, and properties in isolated locations like New Zealand. This contradiction suggests deeper anxieties about the technologies they're developing. Reid Hoffman estimated over fifty percent of Silicon Valley billionaires had acquired apocalypse insurance by 2017, a trend that has accelerated with the AI boom. The escape industry has become a serious market, with wealthy individuals purchasing hardened facilities and luxury survival properties. This phenomenon reveals that those most invested in shaping humanity's technological future simultaneously doubt their own creations' safety, undermining their public narratives about ensuring AI benefits all of humanity.

Read at Silicon Canals