Prince, a prominent critic of Google, argued that the search giant has transformed from a “superhero” of the internet into a villain, wielding its leverage over publishers for monopolistic ends. Google has threatened to pull publishers’ content from search if it’s not allowed to also use it to train AI models.

Prince said they should play by the same rules as other AI companies, many of which are now paying to license content they use in their models.

“Everything that’s wrong with the world today is Google’s fault,” Prince said. “That’s too strong, but only slightly too strong, because Google beget Facebook, which beget TikTok, which beget basically us chasing this deity, which is traffic. Traffic is a terrible proxy for quality.”

In January, at Semafor House in Davos, Prince predicted that Google could “run away” with the AI race thanks to its deep access to information. The company pulls more than three times as much data per web page as OpenAI and five times as much as Microsoft and Anthropic. Prince’s solution is a more open marketplace for buying and selling data.