12 June, 2025
Alex Karp: A.I. Can Never Replace Taste.

On June 10, 2026, in an interview with CNBC, Alex Karp stated that we are seeing a false religion emerge around the frontier labs:

“Philosophically it's wrong because it's not doomer versus not-doomer; it's a hyper-religion of hyper-optimism.”

“They believe all problems — present, past, and future, including the ones they create and don't acknowledge they create — are going to be solved by them, including human nature and disparities.”

“Enterprises are just fed up because they know this doesn't actually work this way. It's not working. And that basically drives our commercial business.”
(https://x.com/PalantirTech/status/2064792917248508258)

Six days before, Karp guested on TBPN and, in his classical energetic mood—which fits well with the authentic and taste-driven hosts—he laid out some of the misunderstandings around A.I., as well as some of the political challenges of our time:

A.I. is, or can be, an enormous turbo-engine for enterprises, but there is also a huge and often meaningless overuse of A.I. Without the tacit knowledge possessed by employees with great taste—the people who value-creation in the company is centered around—leading the charge, the use of A.I. will result in endeavours pointing in all directions and little added value.

It is true that without A.I., companies will fall behind, but that doesn't mean that A.I. can be implemented and put to use on a regular basis without managers and employees possessing classical work virtues and the rare taste—a mix of experience and talent—which ensures that processes and adaptations are adequate to known realities, functional and intuitively smart.

Karp also expressed concerns regarding the current political climate, which the frontier labs are partly to blame for. The hyper-optimism gives the impression that all that needs to be done in the near future is the political regulation of A.I. — and the nationalization of the model providers and other big players to obtain a good share of the economic gains they will supposedly generate.

An adequate understanding of A.I., however, makes it clear that the classical problems associated with nationalization will not disappear because of A.I.

Watch the inspiring talk below.