Business leaders

Reid Hoffman

co-founder of LinkedIn

4 records

Portrait source: U.S. Secretary of Defense, CC BY 2.0

Records

Yet alongside these positive transformations, AI must be safeguarded against dehumanizing applications. The same technologies that accelerate drug development can be weaponized for bioterrorism. The same technologies that provide highly personalized, customized services can be used to surveil. The same technologies that can amplify a personal brand can be used for deepfakes that can manipulate public opinion and sow mistrust.

Exact quote, beginning

Reid Hoffman

co-founder of LinkedIn

In a December 2024 lecture at the London School of Economics, Reid Hoffman said AI could be used for bioterrorism, surveillance, and deepfakes, and that these risks could be mitigated but not eliminated.

Technologist, investor and founderDecember 2024London School of Economics public lecture, AI, Society, and Our World Order

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Surrounding words

Tools like these amplify human agency, as well as address systemic inequities. Yet alongside these positive transformations, AI must be safeguarded against dehumanizing applications. The same technologies that accelerate drug development can be weaponized for bioterrorism. The same technologies that provide highly personalized, customized services can be used to surveil. The same technologies that can amplify a personal brand can be used for deepfakes that can manipulate public opinion and sow mistrust. These risks cannot be eliminated, but they can be mitigated by AI itself, as well as through thoughtful oversight. Beyond these first-order effects, more profound and complex disruptions await. The transformation of work, for example.

What this quote does not say

The personal-site transcript does not state whether it is a prepared text, a post-event transcript, or a lightly edited publication of the speech.
Later in the same lecture, Hoffman rejected framing AI as an existential threat and argued for iterative deployment.

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Now I don’t mind when people say, “Hey, there’s a particular thing that is really bad, like bioterrorism or cybercrime. We should kind of step up the regulation more intensely.” Because a failure point there is so bad that whatever goods you might be eliminating by putting a firm regulation on, that’s fine.

Reid Hoffman

co-founder of LinkedIn

In a January 2025 Vanity Fair interview, Reid Hoffman said AI-enabled bioterrorism and cybercrime were serious enough to justify stronger regulation even if it limited some benefits.

Cofounder of LinkedIn; founding investor in OpenAIPublished January 27, 2025 · date of remarks not establishedVanity Fair Q&A

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It’s one of the reasons why it’s pretty quickly reported when something bad happens, and then people start working on fixing it—like if you have an AI misidentifying the faces of people of color versus white people’s faces. Now I don’t mind when people say, “Hey, there’s a particular thing that is really bad, like bioterrorism or cybercrime. We should kind of step up the regulation more intensely.” Because a failure point there is so bad that whatever goods you might be eliminating by putting a firm regulation on, that’s fine. You mentioned terrorism, and it makes me wonder if you think there are any ethical no-nos when it comes to certain use cases of AI.

What this quote does not say

The interview was edited for length and clarity; no unedited transcript or recording was located.
Later in the interview, Hoffman said he was more worried about governments misunderstanding technology and regulating it badly than about close ties between government and the technology industry.

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I would say a little amusing on a couple of vectors. One is, part of the reason I wrote the book is because a lot of people are responding out of fear and uncertainty. I wrote the book to say, hey, we only get a really positive future by steering toward it and not by just trying to avoid the futures we don’t like. Another one was that you’re constantly getting a combination of skepticism and, to some degree, frankly, overhype.

Exact quote, beginning

Reid Hoffman

co-founder of LinkedIn

In a January 2025 Vanity Fair interview, Reid Hoffman said he did not think a near-term killer-robot scenario was likely, while saying AI would have effects on the scale of the Industrial Revolution.

Cofounder of LinkedIn; founding investor in OpenAIPublished January 27, 2025 · date of remarks not establishedVanity Fair Q&A

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What’s it been like watching society’s introduction to AI, something that you’ve long believed in but was thought by probably a lot of people to be in the realm of science fiction? Reid Hoffman: I would say a little amusing on a couple of vectors. One is, part of the reason I wrote the book is because a lot of people are responding out of fear and uncertainty. I wrote the book to say, hey, we only get a really positive future by steering toward it and not by just trying to avoid the futures we don’t like. Another one was that you’re constantly getting a combination of skepticism and, to some degree, frankly, overhype. And that doesn’t mean that I am not a massive believer, and that this is going to be the cognitive industrial revolution, and that it’s going to make a difference in individuals’ lives on the order of the industrial revolution. So I think it’s going to be very big. On the other hand, you end up getting in a lot of science fiction conversations, which is a little bemusing. There’s dramatics on both sides. There’s dramatics on, “Well, in three years AI will be inventing fusion for us and climate change will be solved!” And you’re like, “Well, I hope so. I don’t think so.” Or, “The killer robots are coming for us and we should be bombing all the AI development factories right now.” And so it’s like, “No, I don’t think that’s in the cards right now either.” nd then the other reason is that people talk a lot about it and don’t use it nearly as much as they should.

What this quote does not say

The interview was edited for length and clarity; no unedited transcript or recording was located.
The denial is temporally qualified by 'right now' and should not be generalized to a permanent rejection of existential risk.

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Statements they signed

FROM THE SIGNED STATEMENT

It could bring risks, including large-scale job displacement, as well as opportunities such as major gains in living standards.

Signed statement: “We Must Act Now” (Stanford Digital Economy Lab/economists)

Reid Hoffman

co-founder of LinkedIn

Signed as part of a group statement. Not spoken.

Reid Hoffman was listed as a signer of We Must Act Now, which calls for guardrails and institutions to steer AI toward complementing people and benefiting society.

GreylockDate not establishedWe Must Act Now

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Surrounding words

University of Cambridge Daniel Susskind, Gresham College Yoshua Bengio, Université de Montréal, LawZero and Mila Gillian Hadfield, Johns Hopkins University Raffaella Sadun, Harvard Business School Tyler Cowen, George Mason University Reid Hoffman, Greylock Wojciech Zaremba, OpenAI Foundation David J.

What this quote does not say

The page labels the section 'Signatories', but the public form's verification is undisclosed and the roster is growing.
Roster observed 2026-08-19; signing date unknown.

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The organiser's own roster lists this person as a signer.

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