The good future, according to the AI labs' co-founders
Anthropic
Named Banks's Culture once (c. 2017) as "the closest thing that exists." Volunteered that benevolent AIs might see us as we see protected "rabbits and horses," and called that the good outcome. Vision: a compressed century of cures, shared abundance, freedom.
Never mentions Banks or the Culture. Never uses pet imagery; stresses human "agency and autonomy." Her vision: AI cures diseases and takes over isolating work, so humans get more time for each other, care and creativity.
Never mentions the Culture. Rejects the idea that a benevolent AI should run things as "an act of acute cowardice." His vision is a billion virtual scientists directed by humans.
Never mentions the Culture or uses the pets framing; when a host raised humans as hamsters, he answered only technically. His sparse, hedged vision: AI out-doing us at physics, curing disease, expanding human agency.
Never mentions the Culture. Raised the idea himself in 2021: a safe future where humans are "kind of irrelevant," happy but not understanding, would be "sad." His vision: AI that helps humans understand more, plus the beauty of an "artificial biology."
Never mentions the Culture; pets never come up. His vision is economic: AI scales up intellectual work, speeds science and cancer research, and gives people coaches that care. He calls AI "perhaps the most positive thing" for humanity.
Never mentions Banks or the Culture; humans-as-pets never comes up. His vision: AI that does what we meant, a "country of geniuses" speeding up science, and abundance he won't describe in detail.
The least public co-founder: one transcribable recording (the 2024 co-founders roundtable), with no lines confidently his. No recorded mention of the Culture or humans as pets.
OpenAI
Culture: only a passing nod after Reid Hoffman raised it, plus a likely "Player of Games" allusion. Pets: once open to humans being outclassed (2019), now flatly rejected. Vision: compressed science, abundance, many AI tools, human agency.
Raised Banks's Culture once, unprompted (2019), as one of the "very few positive stories." Never uses pets framing; rejects "passing the torch." Vision: AI amplifying each person, cures, post-work abundance, humans "firmly in the driver's seat."
Not a co-founder. Never mentions the Culture or pets; insists "humans set the direction." Vision: automated research, with dated goals (AI research intern by Sept 2026, automated AI researcher by March 2028), tempered by worry about concentrated power.
DeepMind
A lifelong Culture fan: raises Banks himself in 11 appearances (2018–2026), calling it "the best depiction" of a post-AGI future. Never uses the pets framing. Vision: cure disease, radical abundance, flourishing among the stars, AI as a tool.
The anti-Culture voice: never mentions Banks, wants AI "subordinate to humanity," calls himself "basically a speciesist." Vision: "humanist superintelligence" bringing abundance and medical breakthroughs, with "humans at the top of the food chain."