AI’s Hot, Hot Mess
I recently read Karen Hao’s Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI. I had a lot of little thoughts—and one big one.
The book covers the history of OpenAI, from its founding around a decade ago until now. In that sense, Empire of AI is useful, because the story of AI development is dense, confusing, and punctuated by eruptions of bizarre behavior.
Take, for example, the way that OpenAI was a not-for-profit and then suddenly presented itself as a Google competitor. Or the way so many of its employees publicly believe that computers will soon become gods and rule over us—and that we must build the god computer in order to stop it. Or the time the OpenAI board fired Sam Altman, but then he was CEO again soon after.
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