Confluent cofounder says believing in AI's upside means reckoning with its 'dark side'

Confluent's cofounder said there's a 'dark side' to good technologies — and that we should listen to recent fears. MTStock Studio/Getty Images Confluent's cofounder wrote on X that AI fears can't be dismissed as a marketing ploy. He's said he's confident in AI. It also has a serious potential "dark side," too. It comes as Silicon Valley labs have faced a barrage of unnerving headlines. AI safety fears have recently moved from an abstract Silicon Valley argument to a series of unnerving real-world episodes . Jay Kreps, a former Anthropic board member and a cofounder of data-streaming software company Confluent, says it is important to take them seriously. In a Thursday night X post, he argued that AI backers need to contend with the technology's downside risks as its capabilities improve — and that fears about those risks are not merely a cynical marketing ploy.