concentration of power
In plain wordsThe worry that AI will put enormous economic, political or military power in the hands of a few companies, governments or individuals, beyond the reach of ordinary checks and balances.
The accumulation of economic, political, informational or military power in a small number of actors as a result of AI development and deployment. Economically, frontier AI has high fixed costs and economies of scale in computecompute, n.: The raw computing power used to train and run AI, usually measured by how many specialized chips are used and for how long. With data and algorithms, it is a main driver of AI progress., data, talent and distribution, so model development and the cloud and chip supply chains are dominated by a handful of firms, raising competition concerns about vertical integration, exclusive partnerships and control of key inputs. Politically, AI can strengthen surveillanceAI surveillance, n.: Using AI to watch, identify, track or profile people on a scale no team of humans could manage, for example by scanning camera feeds or analyzing phone and online data., censorship and persuasion, and if AI substitutes for human workers and soldiers, rulers may depend less on the cooperation of citizens. Safety researchers add scenarios in which a company, faction or individual with privileged access to highly capable AI seizes illegitimate control. Proposed remedies include antitrust enforcement and access obligations, compute governancecompute governance, n.: Using control over the computer chips and data centers that AI depends on — who can buy them, where they go, how they are used — as a way to oversee powerful AI., public AI infrastructure, transparency rules, wider distribution of model access and safeguards against insider misuse.
Her objection to the merger was about concentration of power: one firm would own the chips, the cloud and the models.
Origin
A long-standing theme of political economy and technology criticism, applied to AI by researchers such as the AI Now Institute and by competition authorities including the UK Competition and Markets Authority (foundation-model reviews, 2023–2024). Work such as Tom Davidson, Lukas Finnveden and Rose Hadshar's 'AI-Enabled Coups' (Forethought, 2025) extended it to illegitimate seizures of power (AI-enabled coupsAI-enabled coup, n.: A seizure of power by a small group that uses advanced AI to bypass the soldiers, officials and workers whose cooperation power grabs normally need.).
Usage note
Concern is shared across political and intellectual camps, but remedies divide them: some favor open-weight modelsopen-weight model, n.: An AI model whose trained internal numbers are published for anyone to download and run on their own computers, even if the data and code used to make it stay private. and decentralization, while others argue that open release spreads dangerous capabilities and prefer regulating a few accountable developers. See also gradual disempowermentgradual disempowerment, n.: The risk that, as AI does more and more of the work people now do, humanity slowly loses its grip on business, government and culture, until it no longer steers its own future. and the intelligence curseintelligence curse, n.: The worry that once AI can do most jobs, governments and companies will no longer need ordinary people and so will stop looking after them, like oil-rich states that neglect their citizens..
Related
- compute governancecompute governance, n.: Using control over the computer chips and data centers that AI depends on — who can buy them, where they go, how they are used — as a way to oversee powerful AI.
- AI colonialismAI colonialism, n.: The criticism that the AI industry repeats patterns of colonial empires, taking data, labor, land and resources from poorer places and peoples while profits and control stay with a few rich companies and countries.
- surveillance capitalismsurveillance capitalism, n.: A business model in which companies collect huge amounts of data about people's behavior and use it to predict and influence what they will do, mainly to sell advertising.
- gradual disempowermentgradual disempowerment, n.: The risk that, as AI does more and more of the work people now do, humanity slowly loses its grip on business, government and culture, until it no longer steers its own future.
- intelligence curseintelligence curse, n.: The worry that once AI can do most jobs, governments and companies will no longer need ordinary people and so will stop looking after them, like oil-rich states that neglect their citizens.
- open-weight modelopen-weight model, n.: An AI model whose trained internal numbers are published for anyone to download and run on their own computers, even if the data and code used to make it stay private.
- sovereign AIsovereign AI, n.: A country's ability to build and run AI on its own terms, so that the computers, models and know-how it relies on cannot be withheld or dictated by foreign companies or governments.
- value lock-invalue lock-in, n.: The possibility that powerful AI could freeze one set of values or one power structure in place for an extremely long time, so that later generations could never change course.
Sources
- UK Competition and Markets Authority (2023). AI Foundation Models: Initial Report.
- Davidson, T., Finnveden, L. & Hadshar, R. (2025). AI-Enabled Coups: How a Small Group Could Use AI to Seize Power. Forethought.
Mentioned in
AI bubbleAI bubble, n.: The worry that investors are pouring far more money into AI companies, chips and data centers than AI will earn back soon, so that prices could crash as in the dot-com bust of 2000., AI colonialismAI colonialism, n.: The criticism that the AI industry repeats patterns of colonial empires, taking data, labor, land and resources from poorer places and peoples while profits and control stay with a few rich companies and countries., catastrophic riskcatastrophic risk, n.: The risk that AI could cause disaster on a massive scale — many deaths or enormous damage — through weapons, cyberattacks or systems escaping human control. Several laws now define it precisely., digital dividedigital divide, n.: The gap between people, places or countries that have good access to digital technology, and the skills to use it, and those that do not; AI may widen it., frontier labfrontier lab, n.: One of the handful of companies building the most advanced AI models of the moment, spending billions of dollars on computing power to train them., gradual disempowermentgradual disempowerment, n.: The risk that, as AI does more and more of the work people now do, humanity slowly loses its grip on business, government and culture, until it no longer steers its own future., homogenizationhomogenization, n.: The tendency of AI to make things more alike: products built on the same few models share the same flaws, and people who write or create with AI produce more similar work., surveillance capitalismsurveillance capitalism, n.: A business model in which companies collect huge amounts of data about people's behavior and use it to predict and influence what they will do, mainly to sell advertising., universal basic incomeuniversal basic income, n.: A regular cash payment from the government to every adult, with no conditions attached, sometimes proposed as a way to share wealth if AI takes over much paid work., AI Now InstituteAI Now Institute, prop. n.: A research and advocacy group that examines who is harmed by AI and argues that the deeper problem is the power of a few big technology companies, which it wants curbed by law., AI-enabled coupAI-enabled coup, n.: A seizure of power by a small group that uses advanced AI to bypass the soldiers, officials and workers whose cooperation power grabs normally need., decisive strategic advantagedecisive strategic advantage, n.: A lead in technology and power so large that whoever holds it, whether a country, a company or an AI, could impose its will on the whole world., ForethoughtForethought, prop. n.: A small Oxford research nonprofit that asks what problems, besides keeping AI safe, the rapid arrival of superintelligent AI would create, from power grabs to the rights of digital minds., intelligence curseintelligence curse, n.: The worry that once AI can do most jobs, governments and companies will no longer need ordinary people and so will stop looking after them, like oil-rich states that neglect their citizens., Magnifica HumanitasMagnifica Humanitas, prop. n.: Pope Leo XIV's 2026 letter to the Catholic Church and the world about artificial intelligence, arguing that AI must serve human dignity and the common good., reverse acquihirereverse acquihire, n.: A deal in which a big tech company hires a start-up's founders and top staff and pays to license its technology, without buying the company itself., singletonsingleton, n.: A possible future world run by a single decision-maker at the top, such as one government, one alliance or one AI, with no rival able to challenge it., Turing trapTuring trap, n.: The risk that by building AI mainly to imitate and replace people, rather than to extend what people can do, society ends up with less widely shared prosperity and weaker bargaining power for workers., value lock-invalue lock-in, n.: The possibility that powerful AI could freeze one set of values or one power structure in place for an extremely long time, so that later generations could never change course.