Big Tech companies often claim to be working for the social good, and in some cases, are even registered as ‘public benefit corporations’. But this is a mirage of altruism that seeks to help them avoid regulation and grab power. Writes Pat De Brún and Damini Satija.

In 2021, major AI player Anthropic registered itself as a “public benefit corporation”. According to the company “our PBC structure is important in aligning Anthropic’s governance with our public benefit mission”.

It should come as no surprise that some of the biggest names in AI – including the likes of Anthropic and Inflection AI – are flirting with new corporate structures and promoting renewed efforts towards self-regulation. There is currently unprecedented demand for meaningful state-led regulation over Artificial Intelligence. From President Biden’s recent Executive Order on AI to the recent political agreement over the AI Act in Brussels, governments are waking up to both the threats and supposed economic opportunities presented by AI - and competing to position themselves as leaders in the space of AI regulation.

In an effort to counter this momentum towards effective state regulation, tech CEOs like Sam Altman and Elon Musk have busied themselves touring parliaments and prime ministers’ offices, positioning themselves as the responsible stewards of emerging tech and the only people who can be trusted to save us from the existential threats posed by the very technologies which they wield. They claim to be in favour of regulation, though the unspoken part of these claims is always that they favour regulation on their own terms only. And what profit-seeking corporation wouldn’t want to dictate the rules which might seriously threaten their profitability? These high-level lobbying tours are facilitated by the tech CEO cult of personality which has become so normalized in Silicon Valley and beyond, combined with the inordinate economic power wielded by today’s leading tech corporations – several of which outsize most global economies.

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In addition to this charm offensive, which serves as an effective distraction from the current harms being caused by AI, efforts are underway among tech companies to redefine themselves as inherently good corporate actors, whose modus operandi is to advance public benefit. In 2013, Delaware revised its corporate legal statutes in order to allow corporations to convert into so called “public benefit corporations” – corporations which are mandated not only to act in the best interests of their shareholders, but also for the benefit of an identified “social good”. But public benefit corporations must be seen for what they are – just the latest iteration of tech companies’ long-standing efforts to maximize their profits at the expense of our human rights by evading effective state regulation.

This would not be the first time major tech companies have sought to stave off regulation by presenting themselves as inherently good and mission-driven. The architecture of surveillance capitalism – the dominant economic model underpinning the modern internet and the same insidious system linked to so many of our biggest global challenges - from insurrections to teen mental health crises – was erected under our noses under the guise of ‘not being evil’. This system, whereby access to “free” online services, from search to email and social media to streaming, is predicated on harvesting and analysis of our most intimate personal data, has been able to take root into all aspects of our social lives because of the early successes of Big Tech corporations at presenting themselves as benign actors operating for social good.