Perhaps most interesting is Schmidt’s connection to AFF CEO Gilman Louie. Louie was one of 15 commissioners on the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI), where Schmidt was chair. From 2018 to 2021, the commission developed policy recommendations on how AI could be used to promote US national security. Their work was influential; the Department of Defense has adopted several of its recommendations. Poulson noted that Schmidt’s work on the AI commission could be summed up as “government-sanctioned lobbying.”
Louie’s past experience is likely useful for AFF’s ambitions. He was the first CEO of In-Q-Tel, the CIA venture capital firm that uses agency funding to invest in promising new tech that could be applied to the intelligence sector, whose structure AFF appears to be imitating. In-Q-Tel’s potential conflicts of interest have been well publicized. “More than half its trustees were alleged to have had financial ties to the companies in which the fund invested,” Paul said.
Now observers are concerned that AFF’s board of directors could have similar financial ties with companies it invests in, and that this will create rife opportunities for conflicts of interest. Schmidt is a major funder of tech and defense startups, with a special interest in AI. He’s an investor and chair of Sandbox AQ, an AI software development company spun off from Google’s parent company, Alphabet — and In-Q-Tel recently announced it was backing Sandbox AQ, saying it hopes to eventually sell the software to US intelligence agencies.
