AI models are not objective — they carry strong opinions on history, culture, ethics, and values that vary depending on where they're built, and since AI is becoming the interface for every tool and system (cars, refrigerators, education), whose values get embedded in the models matters enormously.
Ben Horowitz argues AI models are inherently value-laden, not neutral, and since they're becoming the interface for every technology and system, it matters whose values — American/Western or otherwise — get built into them. ✦ AI generated
Ben Horowitz · a16z Podcast · 2026-07-03 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 7:23
“Ben you've said before no country also wants to get colonized in cyerspace right particularly because AI is now just getting built in the six block radius in San Francisco um say say a little bit more about that”
well you know when AI becomes the interface for everything um so every every tool we have every technology we use every kind of system we have from your car to your refrigerator to your education system is going to be built on these models and the models um are not objective. They have opinions um and they they have strong opinions on things like history, on culture, on um you know, ethics, on values.
verbatim transcript · starts at 7:23
7:23more about that >> well you know when AI becomes the interface for everything um so every every tool we have every technology we use every kind of system we have from your car to your refrigerator to your education system is going to be built on these models and the models um are not objective. They have opinions um and they they have strong opinions on things like history,
7:50>> on culture, on um you know, ethics, on values. And by the way, those are very different depending where you are. you know, the uh you know, the history of wars and the you know, history of of of a country and laws and whether that country was a good actor or a bad actor uh are all very different depending on um where you're getting the information from. And so if you believe that you you
8:22know as as I do that you know for all our flaws our fundamental values and ideas about everything from the way our economic system works to the rule of law uh have resulted in basically the best opportunities uh for humans in the world. then you want those values to be projected onto the world more so than to be the recipients of some other values. Um, which you know
8:57maybe were good at a time or maybe um, you know, have some merits but overall don't give people a real opportunity. >> Yeah. Giving giving people a chance. That's the that was the premise of the original announcement we did for our fund announcement earlier this year and the importance of that and then particularly extending that chance to the allies of America as well. Um regular I want to get you involved on
9:20this as well because portfolio companies are increasingly going international way sooner. They're multi-country multi-channel multi-product way sooner in the life cycle. How much of this is also accelerated by what's happening in AI and just the ability to push out software updates right just immediately. >> Yeah. I mean the reality is that products and technology travel faster than companies can >> right because if you got a great product
- ·AI is becoming the interface for every tool and system
- ·Cars, refrigerators, education will run on these models
- ·Models hold strong opinions, not objective facts
- ·Models carry views on history, culture, ethics, values
- ·These views vary by where the model is built
- ·Whose values get embedded matters enormously