This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

Just a few months ago, Andrew Ross Sorkin, the financial journalist, was on this program,

and he quoted a figure that was really remarkable,

virtually all of the recent economic growth in the United States, Sorkin told me,

is investment in artificial intelligence.

A lot of people are concerned that a huge bubble around AI is about to pop and take the economy with it.

And a few people continue to feel that AI is just overhyped.

But I don't think there's really much doubt at this point that in our lifetimes, at least,

AI is going to bring changes as significant as the Industrial Revolution 200 years ago.

At the center of this world-changing technology is a man named Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI. It was OpenAI that really brought artificial intelligence

into most of our lives with chat GPT, and that exploded into our consciousness in 2022.

But the chat bots are just the tip of the iceberg.

OpenAI is planning to go public this year, and it recently fundraised more money than any

company ever.

Ronan Farrow and Andrew Moran's have spoken with over a hundred people closely connected

to Sam Altman and with Altman himself many times. They began by looking in particular at the

week when Altman was very suddenly fired from Open AI and days later reinstated a CEO. That whole episode has been mired in secrecy and confusion.

Ronan and Andrew see the firing, the blip as they call it,

as a key to understanding Altman and the problems with his leadership.

Their extraordinary investigation in the New Yorker

is called Sam Altman, may control the future. Can he be trusted?

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