Jaan Tallinn
SEE GEBRU
TOBACCO ANALOGY HIS?
-=-=
10 26 RT LIVELIHOOD
...Timnit, congratulations on the Right Livelihood Award prize. And I’m wondering if we can move right into the content you’ve been most focused on. Your response to President Trump and the world’s wealthiest tech executives signing a voluntary set of safety standards for artificial intelligence this week? If you can talk about your response and what’s happening right now in California, the major meeting that you’re attending?
TIMNIT GEBRU: Well, so, you know, I have been warning that this kind of discussion about the fictional superintelligent machines that don’t exist and the so-called existential risks that they pose has been a ploy for regulatory capture. And I feel like when I saw this meeting announced, with self-policing and self-regulation and relying on the goodwill of these companies to self-regulate, and I — my first thought was that they got what they wanted. You know, this is what they wanted, instead of being held liable through existing laws....
TIMNIT GEBRU: Well, if you speak to any cybersecurity expert, they would tell you that whatever they had in place that they claim to have, the security practices, were laughable. For example, OpenAI was testing the capabilities of their models to find vulnerabilities and exploit them. That is what they trained these models to do, and they were testing the ability of these models to do what they were trained for. But the thing is, if you want to test this and you don’t want to hack other organizations, you should do it in what’s called an air-gapped environment, where there’s no internet access. And so, they did not have a properly air-gapped environment, and so the models ended up being able to have internet access. This is not models going rogue. This is gross incompetence and negligence by a particular company, which actually they could be held criminally liable for.
Lina Khan outlined a whole bunch of ways in which these companies can be currently held liable with current laws. And unfortunately, that’s not what we’re talking about, right? We’re acting like there is some kind of unprecedented thing that has been created for which we have to discuss what to do. But actually, if we did not take these companies’ words for what went wrong, we could have — we could use the legal mechanisms at our disposal to currently hold them accountable.
AMY GOODMAN: Timnit, can you talk about Senator Bernie Sanders’ effort to ban artificial superintelligence? In a recent piece, you described his bill as “well-meaning but ultimately misguided.” Explain.
TIMNIT GEBRU: I think that Bernie Sanders is really leading the left astray, and I’ve been extremely disappointed and, in fact, to be clear, shocked, absolutely shocked, by the kinds of people he’s been surrounding himself with and the kind of advice that he’s been getting.
One of the things that I think people do not realize is that the AI industry is using the exact same playbook from the tobacco and fossil fuel industry. So, for instance, Bernie Sanders has this alliance with Steve Bannon, is very closely working with the Future of Life Institute, which was co-founded by billionaire Jaan Tallinn, the same billionaire, Jaan Tallinn, who’s a leading investor in Anthropic Series A. He led Anthropic Series A. It’s also the same billionaire, Jaan Tallinn, who invests in — invested in a so-called auditing, third-party auditing, organization that claims to audit Anthropic’s models.
So, this whole rogue models, you know, agents creating civilizations and all of that lingo came from this very pseudoscientific audit that is by an organization that claims to be a third party, but in fact isn’t, because you see it’s the same investors, the same staff, the same people. So, to the public, it seems like there’s a whole bunch of independent experts coming together, warning about these existential risks, but what is actually happening is regulatory capture. The same way I learned that British Petroleum came up with the term “carbon footprint,” — right? — instead of them being held accountable, now everybody’s conversation about the environment in 2004 got redirected to our individual responsibility and carbon footprint.
So, this is sort of what’s happening in this AI industry. So, instead of Bernie Sanders talking about, for instance, how can we have regulation to prevent the use of these faulty systems, what he’s doing is he’s helping them market their systems as superintelligent, in which case, in my opinion, the real existential risk is like what we saw with the U.S. military almost starting World War III because of the belief that these systems are infallible and actually superintelligent. What we need people to understand is that they are fallible, they’re not superintelligent. And we need to hold corporations liable for unleashing these kinds of error-prone models into the world.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Timnit, could you talk about this idea of yours of stochastic parrots and how it applies to AI, and then respond to the fact that many have said now that that’s an outdated — that that research is outdated because AI has changed so much?...
-=-=
10 26 SOME TALK
Jaan Tallinn (born 14 February 1972) is an Estonian computer programmer and investor[2][3] known for his participation in the development of Skype and file-sharing application FastTrack/Kazaa.[4]
Tallinn is an investor and advocate for AI safety.[5]
He was an early investor and board member at DeepMind (later acquired by Google); other investors included Elon Musk and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund.[5][6] In 2021, Tallinn also led the $124 million Series A funding round for Anthropic, an AI safety-focused company.[7]
Tallinn is involved in the field of existential risk, having co-founded both the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) at the University of Cambridge, in the United Kingdom[8][9] and the Future of Life Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States.[10][11][12][13]
Life
Tallinn graduated from the University of Tartu in Estonia in 1996 with a BSc in theoretical physics with a thesis that considered travelling interstellar distances using warps in spacetime.[14]
Tallinn founded Bluemoon in Estonia alongside schoolmates Ahti Heinla and Priit Kasesalu. Bluemoon's Kosmonaut became, in 1989 (SkyRoads is the 1993 remake), the first Estonian game to be sold abroad, and earned the company US$5,000 (~$12,987 in 2025). By 1999, Bluemoon faced bankruptcy; its founders decided to acquire remote jobs for the Swedish Tele2 at a salary of US$330 (~$638.00 in 2025) each per day. The Tele2 project, "Everyday.com", was a commercial flop. Subsequently, while working as a stay-at-home father, Tallinn developed FastTrack and Kazaa for Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (formerly of Tele2). Kazaa's P2P technology was later repurposed to drive Skype around 2003. Tallinn sold his shares in Skype in 2005, when it was purchased by eBay.[15][9]
In 2014, he invested in the reversible debugging software for app development Undo.[16] He also made an early investment in DeepMind which was purchased by Google in 2014 for $600 million (~$781 million in 2024).[17] Other investments include Faculty, a British AI startup focused on tracking terrorists,[18] and Pactum, an "autonomous negotiation" startup based in California and Estonia.[19]
According to sources cited by the Wall Street Journal and Semafor, Tallinn loaned Alameda Research, co-founded by Sam Bankman-Fried, about $100 million (~$123 million in 2024), and recalled most of the loan in 2018.[20][21]
As of 2019, Tallinn was married and had six children.[9]
Other tenures
Member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.[22]
Former member of the Estonian President's Academic Advisory Board.[23]
Co-founder of the personalized medical research company MetaMed.[24][25]
Tallinn is a participant in and donor to the effective altruism movement.[26][27] As of April 2026, the Machine Intelligence Research Institute credited him with over $1.6 million in total contributions, including matching funds leveraged.[28] His initial donation when co-founding the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk in 2012 was around $200,000 (~$269,299 in 2024).[9]
Views
Tallinn promotes the study of existential risk and has spoken publicly on this topic.[29] His main worries are related to artificial intelligence, unknowns coming from technological development, synthetic biology and nanotechnology.[30][31] He believes humanity is not spending enough resources on long-term planning and mitigating threats that could cause human extinction.[32] He has been a supporter of the Rationalist movement.[33] He has also contributed to Chatham House, supporting their work on the nuclear threat.[citation needed]
His views on the AI alignment problem have been influenced by the writings of Eliezer Yudkowsky. Tallinn recalls that "the overall idea that caught my attention that I never had thought about was that we are seeing the end of an era during which the human brain has been the main shaper of the future".[34] In 2023, he said he had yet to meet anyone working at AI labs who thinks the risk of training the next-generation model "blowing up the planet" is less than 1%.[35]
When employees of OpenAI left to form Anthropic, primarily out of concerns that OpenAI was not focused enough on AI safety, Tallinn invested in the new company. However, he was unsure if he had made the right decision, arguing that "on the one hand, it’s great to have this safety-focused thing. On the other hand, this is proliferation". Tallinn praised Anthropic for having a greater safety focus than other AI companies, but said "that doesn’t change the fact that they’re dealing with dangerous stuff and I’m not sure if they should be. I’m not sure if anyone should be".[5]
Tallinn donated $482,000 to the pronatalist Pragmatist Foundation, created by Simone and Malcolm Collins.[36]
In March 2023, Tallinn signed an open letter from the Future of Life Institute calling for "all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4".[37][38] In May 2023, he signed a statement from the Center for AI Safety which read "Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war".[39][40] He also signed the October 2025 statement from the Future of Life Institute calling for "a prohibition on the development of superintelligence, not lifted before there is broad scientific consensus that it will be done safely and controllably, and strong public buy-in".[41][42]
References
"Jaan Tallinn, Curriculum Vitae". University of Tartu Foundation. May 2012. Archived from the original on 6 December 2013. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
"Jaan Tallinn at Ambient Sound Investments". University of Cambridge. Retrieved 30 October 2016.
"Billionaires bet on Brussels to save them from AI singularity". Politico. Retrieved 9 August 2022.
"'Building AI is like launching a rocket': Meet the man fighting to stop artificial intelligence destroying humanity". ZDNET. Retrieved 2023-08-20.
Albergotti, Reed (Apr 28, 2023). "The co-founder of Skype invested in some of AI's hottest startups — but he thinks he failed". Semafor.
"Google's Acquisition Of DeepMind Could Shine A Light On Other British AI Startups". TechCrunch. 28 Jan 2014. Retrieved 16 December 2024.
"Anthropic raises $124 million to build more reliable, general AI systems". Research News. Anthropic. 28 May 2021. Retrieved 16 December 2024.
Lewsey, Fred (25 November 2012). "Humanity's last invention and our uncertain future". Research News. University of Cambridge. Retrieved 28 January 2013.
Hvistendahl, Mara (28 March 2019). "Can we stop AI outsmarting humanity?". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 March 2019.
"Future of Life Institute".
"Elon Musk Donates $10M To Make Sure AI Doesn't Go The Way Of Skynet". Mashable. 2015. Retrieved 21 Jun 2015.
"Elon Musk spends $10 million to stop robot uprising (+video)". Christian Science Monitor. 2015. Retrieved 21 Jun 2015.
"Elon Musk: Future of Life Institute Artificial Intelligence Research Could be Crucial". BostInno. Retrieved 5 Jun 2015.
"Jaan Tallinn". Starmus.
""How can they be so good?": The strange story of Skype". Ars Technica. 3 September 2018. Retrieved 29 March 2019.
"Skype Co-Founder Jaan Tallinn Backs Reversible Debugging Startup Undo Software". TechCrunch. 29 April 2014. Retrieved 2019-09-10.
Shead, Sam. "The Skype Mafia: Who Are They And Where Are They Now?". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-09-10.
Field, Matthew; Boland, Hannah (29 November 2019). "Guardian venture arm invests millions in terrorist tracking AI start-up". The Telegraph. Retrieved 31 March 2020.
Williams, Joe (2020). "Walmart is about to let machines negotiate contracts with some suppliers, and it's a glimpse into the future of supply chains in a post-coronavirus world". Business Insider. Retrieved 31 March 2020.
Patricia Kowsmann; Vicky Ge Huang; Caitlin Ostroff; Gregory Zuckerman (31 December 2022). "Troubles at Sam Bankman-Fried's Alameda Began Well Before Crypto Crash". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2023-01-02.
Albergotti, Reed; Hoffman, Liz (8 December 2022). "Charity-linked money launched Sam Bankman-Fried's empire". Semafor.
"Board of Sponsors". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
"Office of the President press announcement". Archived from the original on 2011-05-14.
Weber, Harrison (1 March 2013). "Peter Thiel-backed MetaMed thinks you should have your own on-demand medical research team". TheNextWeb. Retrieved 4 April 2013.
Clarke, Liat (24 April 2015). "The solution to saving healthcare systems? New feedback loops". Wired.co.uk. Retrieved 24 May 2015. Tallinn learned the importance of feedback loops himself the hard way, after seeing the demise of one of his startups, medical consulting firm Metamed.
"Jaan Tallinn – Effective Altruism". Effective Altruism. Archived from the original on 2021-08-25. Retrieved 2017-07-03.
"Skype inventor Jaan Tallinn wants to use Bitcoin technology to save the world". The Telegraph. Retrieved 2017-07-03.
"Top Contributors". Machine Intelligence Research Institute. 30 April 2026.
"Jaan Tallinn on the Intelligence Stairway". YouTube. 19 July 2012.
"A Skype founder on biomonitors, existential risk and simulated realities". The Wall Street Journal. 31 May 2013. Retrieved 2014-05-02.
"Existential Risk: A Conversation with Jaan Tallinn". Edge Foundation, Inc. 16 April 2015.
"Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn on surviving the rise of the machines". Marketplace. 26 December 2012. Retrieved 2014-05-02.
"I'm Jaan Tallinn, co-founder of Skype, Kazaa, CSER and MetaMed. AMA". Reddit. 7 June 2013.
Pinkerton, Byrd (2019-06-19). "He co-founded Skype. Now he's spending his fortune on stopping dangerous AI". Vox. Retrieved 2024-07-24.
Barten, Otto; Meindertsma, Joep (2023-07-20). "An AI Pause Is Humanity's Best Bet For Preventing Extinction". TIME. Retrieved 2024-07-24.
"Meet the 'elite' couples breeding to save mankind". Telegraph. 2023-04-17. Archived from the original on 17 April 2023. Retrieved 2025-10-27.
"Tech chiefs call on scientists to pause development of AI systems". The Independent. 2023-03-29. Retrieved 2024-07-24.
"Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter". Future of Life Institute. Retrieved 2024-07-24.
Lomas, Natasha (2023-05-30). "OpenAI's Altman and other AI giants back warning of advanced AI as 'extinction' risk". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-07-24.
"Statement on AI Risk | CAIS". www.safe.ai. Retrieved 2024-07-24.
"Statement on Superintelligence". Future of Life Institute.
"Prince Harry, Meghan join call for ban on development of AI 'superintelligence'". Associated Press. 22 October 2025.
External links
Interview Series with Jaan Tallinn
Ambient Sound Investments – Jaan Tallinn's Profile
Bluemoon Interactive
The Guardian profile on Estonia by Jaan Tallinn
Jaan Tallinn's Metamed Profile
Jaan Tallinn does a Reddit AMA
Jaan Tallinn in Oxford 2023
-=-=
-=-=
-=-=DCK 10 26
indexed.vc
https://indexed.vc › investors › jaan-tallinn
Jaan Tallinn Portfolio: 23 Investments, Focus & Fund Details (2026 ...
Jaan Tallinn is an Estonian computer programmer and angel investor known for co-developing Skype and Kazaa. He has invested over $130 million of personal wealth into 100-200 technology startups, with notable early investments in DeepMind and Anthropic.
ERR
https://news.err.ee › 1610151223 › wsj-estonian-tech-guru-terrified-of-ai-yet-set-to-make-billions
WSJ: Estonian tech guru 'terrified' of AI yet set to make billions
3 days agoEstonian tech billionaire Jaan Tallinn had long warned of the risks of rapid Artificial Intelligence (AI) development, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Estonian tech billionaire Jaan Tallinn had long warned of the risks of rapid Artificial Intelligence (AI) development, the Wall Street Journal reported.
At the same time Tallinn, 54, co-founder of Skype, has been investing in AI firms in order to promote greater focus on safety.
Tallinn spent last week in New York at the UN General Assembly, his latest stop in a year of long-haul trips to tell entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers and anyone else who will listen that AI could potentially end humanity.
One of AI firm Anthropic's earliest investors, Tallinn stands to make billions more in the coming months from the AI company's expected initial public offering (IPO). Concerns about AI motivated him to invest nonetheless.
For over a decade now Tallinn has been making the case for AI safety, something which spilled into public view in recent weeks when Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned, warning AI could spin out of control or even "kill us all by the end of the decade".
Anthropic, the company behind Claude and a rival to OpenAI, which created ChatGPT, has stressed a safety-first approach.
"Unfortunately, I believe we are not taking this threat seriously enough and that we are racing to build a technology that could end humanity," Tallinn said in a statement. "If more people demand the right to understand the risk and speak up about the risks of recklessly developing this technology, then we and our children will all stand a better chance of surviving."
Tallinn has many fears: The race between AI labs, the U.S. rivalry with China, AI's growing ability to improve itself. He has imagined apocalyptic scenarios like AI data centers snapping up land once used for agriculture and causing mass starvation, or AI engineers altering the earth's atmosphere, making it inhospitable to humans.
Tallinn's view, according to friends and colleagues, is that if he hadn't invested in Anthropic, an investor less bothered about safety might have taken his place. He believes he can have the most positive impact by investing in AI companies, and using his returns to invest in nonprofits that support AI safety. The AI-safety community is divided over whether the best way to encourage safe AI development is to work at or invest in the companies developing the technology, or to support independent safety research without fueling the AI race.
"All good, talented engineers who are mindful of that risk basically have a decision to make," said Rauno Miljand, the managing partner at Tallinn's investment firm, Metaplanet. "Run to the shelter and try to spend as much time with loved ones, or to try to impact the process and steer the probabilities that humanity will survive."
The original WSJ piece is here.
Semafor
Co-founder of Skype invested in hot AI startups but thinks he ... - Semafor
Jaan Tallinn used the fortune he made selling Skype in 2009 to invest in AI companies like Anthropic and DeepMind — not because he was excited about the future of artificial intelligence — but because he believed the technology was a threat. By funneling more than $100 million in more than 100 startups, the
The Wall Street Journal
https://www.wsj.com › tech › ai › jaan-tallinn-anthropic-ai-f513f181
He's Completely Terrified of AI—and He's About to Make Billions Off It
7 days agoOne of Anthropic's earliest investors, Jaan Tallinn dances hip-hop and warns about "racing to build a technology that could end humanity."
He’s Completely Terrified of AI—and He’s About to Make Billions Off It
One of Anthropic’s earliest investors, Jaan Tallinn dances hip-hop and warns about ‘racing to build a technology that could end humanity’
By
Kate Clark
Sept. 25, 2026 7:00 pm ET
JAAN TALLINN spent this past week in New York at the United Nations General Assembly, his latest stop in a year of long-haul trips to tell entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers and anyone else who will listen: AI could end humanity.
One of Anthropic’s earliest investors, Tallinn stands to make billions in the coming months from the artificial-intelligence company’s expected initial public offering. Concerns about AI motivated him to invest.
hardtechuk.com
-=-=-=