meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
What Next | Daily News and Analysis

TBD | Inside OpenAI's Empire

What Next | Daily News and Analysis

Slate

News, Daily News, News Commentary, Politics

4.62.3K Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

OpenAI started as a non-profit dedicated to building safe A.I. Now, they’re obsessed with building artificial general intelligence by any means necessary - even if they don’t quite know what that is.  Guest: Karen Hao, reporter and author of “Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI” Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Race the rudder, raise the sails, raise the sales!

0:05.0

Captain, an unidentified ship approaching. Over.

0:07.0

Roger that. Wait, is that an enterprise sales solution?

0:13.0

Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors.

0:17.0

With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title, and more.

0:21.3

To get £100 off your first campaign, go to LinkedIn.com slash lead to claim your credit.

0:26.6

That's LinkedIn.com slash lead. Terms and conditions apply.

0:30.2

The Steakhouse stack, with two layers of delicious beef, crispy onions and peppercorn sauce.

0:34.6

It's the kind of McDonald's you take photos of to put pride of place on the mantelpiece. Sure, you'll need to make room, but you remember what your wedding day look like?

0:41.6

The Steakhouse Stack. It's McDonald's and then some.

0:45.7

Available to the 17th of June, served from 11 a.m., subjects of availability, participating

0:49.4

restaurants only.

1:01.5

In August of 2019, reporter Karen Howe went to visit the San Francisco headquarters of Open AI.

1:07.5

It had started as a nonprofit research lab that said it was dedicated to fundamental AI research with no commercial focus, no commercial intent. At the time, Karen was covering

1:14.6

AI for MIT Tech Review. An OpenAI was the buzzy new kid on the block. It had money, big names,

1:22.2

and lofty ambitions to develop artificial general intelligence, AGI, for the good of society.

1:30.1

Then, Open AI, which had really built a mission around the idea that it would be fully

1:37.2

transparent and open source all of its research, withheld its first piece of research

1:42.0

for sort of unclear, ambiguous reasons.

1:46.0

And then it restructured as an organization.

1:50.0

A few months earlier, the nonprofit that controlled OpenAI set up a for-profit arm

1:55.4

and got a billion dollars from Microsoft.

...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 22 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Slate and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.