It’s been a minute since OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was ousted, returned five days later, and then reset the governing board at the maker of ChatGPT. If, like most of the world, you haven’t been following the plot twists after the board fired him for not being “consistently candid” in his communications, don’t worry. There are lots of insider looks and timelines and analysis pieces about the saga, and about the men who have starring roles in the future of AI, including Altman; Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and CEO Satya Nadella; Twitter/X owner Elon Musk; Google co-founder Larry Page; venture capitalists Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel; and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
But the simple recap is this: power, ego and money pitted against concern and ethics. OpenAI has a valuation of more than $85 billion, and its investors, including Microsoft, didn’t want to see that evaporate with Altman’s departure, which set up a staff revolt and potential brain drain at the startup. At the same time, researchers, engineers and ethicists working on the tech were cautious and mindful of its possible implications for the future of humanity, which aren’t all positive, and how OpenAI’s leader was driving the tech forward.
“The OpenAI debacle has illustrated that building AI systems is testing whether businesspeople who want to make money can work in sync with researchers who worry that what they are developing could eventually eliminate jobs or become a threat if technologies like autonomous weapons grow out of control,” wrote The New York Times in its Five Days of Chaos summation.
“The crisis at OpenAI is personifying a question that has been boiling inside the AI industry and creating angst among technology giants and world leaders: Who can be trusted to open the Pandora’s box that artificial intelligence might represent?” noted The Wall Street Journal in its behind-the-scenes investigation.
The take by The Atlantic magazine carries this headline: The Money Always Wins.Â
Altman, who…
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