Ben Goertzel advocates for decentralized AGI development, pushes back on government ownership of AI

Ben Goertzel, the founder and CEO of SingularityNET, isn’t buying the idea that governments should own AI companies. On June 2, Goertzel published a pointed critique responding to US Senator Bernie Sanders’ op-ed advocating for government ownership of major AI firms, arguing instead that the path to Artificial General Intelligence should be collaborative, open-source, and decentralized.

The core of Goertzel’s argument is straightforward: handing control of AI to any single entity, whether a corporation or a government, risks concentrating power in ways that stifle progress.

The case against nationalization

Goertzel has been beating this drum since at least the early 2010s, long before decentralized AI became a trendy talking point. His position is that beneficial AGI outcomes are far more achievable when no single organization holds the keys to the technology.

SingularityNET and the ASI Alliance

Goertzel isn’t just philosophizing. He’s been building infrastructure to back up the thesis. SingularityNET, which he founded in 2017, operates as a decentralized marketplace for AI algorithms and services. The idea is that any developer can contribute AI tools and any user can access them, without a central authority deciding who gets to participate.

In 2024, the project took a significant step by forming the Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) Alliance. This brought together SingularityNET with Fetch.ai, Ocean Protocol, and CUDOS through a community token merger. The alliance is designed around open-source principles and governance structures specifically built to prevent any single entity from dominating the ecosystem.

As of June 2026, SingularityNET has completed the integration of the FET (ASI) token across its platform. The token now facilitates both transactions and governance for new AI services launched on the network.

What this means for investors

Despite the significance of Goertzel’s statements, immediate market reactions were minimal. No major price swings followed the post, which suggests that the crypto market views this more as an ongoing ideological conversation than a catalyst event.