For being poised to become the richest startup in history, OpenAI’s architects seem strikingly ambivalent about its work.
The company’s CEO is constantly afraid of the technology he’s unleashing on the world, a longstanding investor has been driven to what his peers say are signs of psychosis, and even its chairman is panicking about losing his identity to the machine.
Speaking on the podcast “Acquired” earlier this week, the chair of OpenAI’s board, Bret Taylor, expressed his anxiety that AI chatbots like ChatGPT are redefining his relationship to technology, destroying — or at least making unrecognizable — the world of programming in which he built his career.
“The thing I self-identify with is just, like, being obviated by this technology,” Taylor said in the interview. “So it’s like, the reason why I think these tools are being embraced so quickly is they truly are like an Iron Man suit for all of us as individuals.”
Though Taylor expressed some muted optimism about AI’s effects on “productivity,” his attitude toward the near future was decidedly troubled.
“You’re going to have this period of transition where it’s saying, like, ‘How I’ve come to identify my own worth, either as a person or as an employee, has been disrupted.’ That’s very uncomfortable. And that transition isn’t always easy,” the chairman declared.
While it’s nice to know that multi-millionaires like Taylor have feelings too, we should probably take his fearmongering with a grain of salt.
For starters, GPT-5, OpenAI’s latest iteration of its ultra-popular chatbot, isn’t exactly taking humanity by storm. The model’s long-awaited release went over like a wet napkin with users earlier this month, with software engineers and programmers particularly miffed at the “updated” version’s coding abilities compared to earlier iterations.
Scaremongering is also a tried-and-true sales tactic for OpenAI more broadly. CEO Sam Altman is a trailblazer of the strategy, making comments about a theoretical superintelligence meant to intrigue investors while scaring lawmakers into compliance.
In March of 2023, for example, Altman made an appearance on the “Lex Fridman Podcast,” a popular interview show on tech and science. There, the CEO played coy about the software product he had spent years building.
“I think it’s weird when people think it’s like a big dunk that I say, I’m a little bit afraid,” Altman said. “And I think it’d be crazy not to be a little bit afraid, and I empathize with people who are a lot afraid.”
That was mere weeks before OpenAI courted a further $300 million in funding from various sources, amidst an ongoing campaign to ensure the company has a seat at any table discussing AI regulation. In May 2023, Altman appeared before an unusually friendly US Senate Committee to preach about the dangers of superintelligent AI and call for its swift regulation, a move tech policy experts warned was paving the way for OpenAI to weaponize government regulation for its own…
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