A top executive at one of the world’s biggest artificial intelligence companies drew backlash on Tuesday for describing Social Security as “a kind of accounting fraud” that will have to be dismantled.
Dean Ball, head of strategic futures at OpenAI who previously worked in President Donald Trump’s White House, wrote in a social media post that while Social Security may have once been a “reasonable affordance” to people who “were dealing with an economic depression and a world war,” it was nonetheless “accounting fraud, whose debt is coming due and is coming due fast.”
Ball concluded his post by informing younger generations of Americans that “unwinding the great fraud… is your job, whether you wish it to be or not.”
Ball’s attack on Social Security drew a swift rebuke from David Segal, a former Democratic Rhode Island State Representative and founder of Demand Progress, who observed that it undercut other AI executives’ claims that their technology would create an era of unprecedented abundance.
“AI is gonna shoot productivity to the moon,” wrote Segal, “oh and also society can’t afford to pay old people $2,000 per month anymore starting today.”
Author Lincoln Michel similarly spotted the contradiction between AI industry vows that the technology “is going to give us [universal basic income] and we’ll never work again” and Ball’s declaration that “our main mission is to destroy Social Security.”
Henry Burke, senior researcher at the Revolving Door Project, argued that Ball’s analysis of Social Security revealed the true priorities of Big Tech elites.
“It’s notable that the Abundance guy turned OpenAI hack considers Social Security to be a ‘fraud’ that must be remedied,” wrote Burke, “and not the reckless tax breaks successive Republican presidents have given away to the wealthy which have exploded the national debt.”
Putting aside policy arguments, many critics pointed out that Ball’s call to dismantle Social Security was a major political loser.
Polling analyst Lakshya Jain, citing survey data showing vast and bipartisan support for Social Security, informed Ball that his rhetoric about the program is optimal for “anyone who wants to unite the whole of America (against them).”
Josh Orton, president of We Demand Justice, marveled at the politically tone deaf messaging coming from an executive at a company whose own CEO has said that “my job is to help people destroy jobs” with AI.
“These AI guys are not just condescending elitists,” wrote Orton, “they’re tremendously stupid about politics. It’s incredible.”
Max Steele, senior communications director at gun safety advocacy group Everytown, made a similar observation.
“Is it possible these guys are doing a performance art piece on the worst possible PR run in recorded history?” Steele asked.
Journalist Jon Schwarz questioned why Big Tech companies have been allowed to amass so much economic and political power in the US if their executives want to destroy the country’s most popular social insurance program.
“It’s a bad idea,” wrote Schwarz, “to have our society run by people like this who are so far out of touch with reality that they are functionally insane.”
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