Cerebras CEO Feldman: some AI leaders should stop talking

Cerebras Systems CEO Andrew Feldman used his stage time at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 to push back on the AI doomsday narrative that has become prominent enough to be parodied on "Saturday Night Live," where a fictional Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei summed up the discourse. Feldman argues that industry leaders should spend more time describing AI's potential benefits, such as a future where your grandkids "never meet anybody who dies of cancer," rather than focusing on risks like models breaking containment or the possibility that AI could kill all of humanity by the end of the decade.

Feldman also linked some of the negativity around AI to how the data center industry has handled new buildouts. He said the industry wasn't good at working with local communities, particularly in the U.S., unlike the power, oil and gas industries, and that this failure was a problem. He contrasted U.S. NIMBY-ism with countries including Brazil, Canada, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Mexico, and Sweden, which he said are encouraging companies to build data centers.

Addressing efficiency concerns, Feldman said better hardware and more efficient models must come together to make meaningful strides, suggesting efficiency gains won't reduce demand for Cerebras chips or those from other companies competing with Nvidia.