Cohere's Aidan Gomez says democracies need AI they control themselves

Aidan Gomez, who co-founded the AI company Cohere, said democratic countries rely too heavily on a few American tech companies. He said so on the podcast Newcomer Pod, in an episode posted Friday, June 26.

This touches daily life more than it sounds. Gomez listed phone companies, banks, healthcare, the power grid, water treatment and defense. If the AI behind those services can be switched off from outside, the services are at risk.

Gomez said the democratic alliance, including the G7, now buys almost all its technology from a very small set of players. He called that a weak system. He pointed to the export ban on Anthropic's models as proof that access can be pulled away. Then came the line he built it around.

"The first thing you learn as a computer scientist or engineer is don't build a single point of failure." He says that starts at 12:55.

The story in the news is from AOL. Its headline says Cohere launched a Defence AI Accelerator in Singapore for sovereign customers. The description says it will help public sector groups move AI from pilot projects to mission-ready operations.

Cohere sells exactly this kind of setup. Gomez said Cohere runs its AI on its customers' own computers, instead of asking them to send data over the internet to Cohere. He said that approach should apply to critical work, while startups can keep using online services.

Watch the 3 minutes where he makes the case.11:35